Haunted house
by LoSa
Summary: Teen Power Inc story #3. People say that strange things have been happening in the old mansion where the gang works. Three of them think that's ridiculous. By the time they realized their mistake, it's too late. Sunny's narration.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1. A strange story**

'Is it here?' Richelle looked around. 'Liz, are you sure?'

'Well, it's the number dad gave me,' Liz answered doubtfully.

Liz's dad, who runs the real estate agency, sometimes recommended Teen Power Inc to people who wanted a clean-up done on a house that was going to be sold. That day we were going to the job interview with an old lady. Her husband died about a couple of months ago and she wanted to sell her huge old mansion and buy a nice little house. Liz's dad had already found someone who wanted to buy this house, but the buyer wanted the house and its garden cleaned. That was why Mr Free recommended Teen Power Inc to clean the garden from old branches, rotten leaves and other trash to satisfy the buyer.

'It'll take a month to clean this place,' Nick said gloomily, looking around the extremely overgrown huge garden.

'Well we don't have to clean it all,' I said hopefully. 'Mr Free said that we should only move brushwood and leaves from the garden to make the place look better.' But I had to admit, I was disappointed. We were going to go through a lot of work for peanuts.

I looked around. The house was big and very old. Huge, overgrown garden wasn't welcoming either. There was nothing but tangled bushes, weeds and knee-deep grass. The back part of the house, which was quite big, seemed uninhabited. Its walls looked as though they were about to collapse any moment. The front part of the house, which was built much later, looked better, but all the same, this house needed to be repaired, what the old lady apparently couldn't afford. Behind the mansion I saw a small chapel, which obviously hadn't been used at least for twenty years. The house was on the outskirts of town, so there was nothing but empty ground with bushes and trees behind it.

'Okay, let's go in,' Elmo strode along the overgrown path to the front door.

Liz pressed the ring button. The door opened a crack and a startled wrinkly face peered out.

'Um…hello,' Liz stammered. 'I'm Liz Free. My dad must have told you that we'd come to work in your garden. We are Teen Power Inc.'

The face disappeared and the door opened with creak. We saw the old woman standing in the doorway.

'Hello, come in,' she smiled friendly.

We let ourselves in and stepped into a large living room. The house looked much better here than outside. I'd say it was even noble inside. Pictures, beautiful old furniture - it was obvious that a rich family had lived here long ago. But everything was old and scraped. After repairing this place will be great, I thought.

'Excuse the mess, please,' the woman said, noticing us look around. 'I haven't enough power to clean it up. And since my husband died, this house gradually has been falling to desolation.'

Liz mumbled something with sympathy.

'Oh, no, no,' the woman laughed. 'I'm glad to sell this house. I've never liked it. I'm really happy to sell it and buy a small modern flat.'

'What are we supposed to do, Mrs…er,' I decided to get to the point.

'Mrs Swift,' the woman said. 'I want you to collect leaves and other trash in bags, gather brushwood in piles and mow grass where it's necessary.'

Nick and Richelle cheered up when they heard that there was not so much work as they expected. They both liked only interesting or easy jobs. I guess they got more pocket money than the rest of us put together.

'We saw a chapel behind the house,' I heard Liz's voice. 'Who did build it there?'

'Oh, this is very old house,' the woman replied. 'This house belonged to a very rich man, who made his money by selling slaves. He built this chapel. Maybe he wanted to expiate his wickedness there.'

'What happened to him in the end?' Elmo asked.

'As far as I know his slaves attacked him after all,' the woman answered. 'They killed him and his family. But I don't know exactly history of this house. I had to live here because my late husband loved old spooky places like it, that's all. To tell the truth this place always gave me the creeps.'

'Why?' Tom asked, his eyes wide. 'Do you think this place is haunted?'

A strange expression appeared on Mrs Swift's face. 'I've never seen any ghosts or something, young man,' she said. 'But people say…' she pitched her voice lower.

'What?' Tom leaned forward.

'That in the back block of the house, which had been fired by slaves during the attack and where slave trader's family died, people sometimes see light there and hear moans.'

I shook my head in irritation. I didn't want this woman to tell stories about ghosts. Liz, Tom and especially Richelle would start to rave about it and jump with every rustle, driving me crazy.

'Mrs Swift, we can start to work right now, if you don't mind,' I suggested.

'Oh, sure, dear!' Mrs Swift looked pleased. 'You'll find necessary implements in a shed behind the house.'

We nodded and was about to go, when the door bell rang. Mrs Swift went to answer and the Work Demons, came in, shoving and scuffling with each other. We froze. They also hesitated for a minute, then Henshaw threateningly growled, 'what are you doing here?'

'We work here,' Nick snapped and strode towards the door, but Henshaw stood in his way.

'Come again,' he snarled.

'Boys! Stop quarreling, please!' the old woman mumbled, looking startled. 'There is so much work to do here that I decided to hire two teams. One team will work in the garden and another one will pack things in uninhabited rooms.'

'We came first, so we go to the garden,' Tom shouted cheerfully.

To tell the truth I was glad that we came first. To pick up brushwood and leaves outside was much better than to rummage in the old dusty things inside. We've never worked in one place together with the Work Demons, though. I hope they won't cause troubles for us.

'Let's go,' I said calmly and walked towards the door.

'Kids…um…be careful,' Mrs Swift mumbled. 'Don't come close to the chapel, please.'

'Why?' Nick asked curiously.

'Well…' the old woman hesitated. 'Just in case.'

'Mrs Swift, is something wrong?' Liz asked firmly.

'No,' she mumbled. 'It's just…er…they say that it's haunted. I don't believe it, but all the same, stay away from that place.'

'Don't worry, we're not afraid of ghosts,' Nick smirked scornfully. 'Yeah?' he looked sideways at Tom.

'Why do you think it's haunted, Mrs Swift?' Richelle whispered, ignoring him. 'I mean, you said that you'd never seen anything strange.'

'I hadn't,' the woman nodded. 'But… one of my neighbors came to me this morning. He looked very startled and asked if I opened the chapel last night?'

'Why?' Richelle opened her big blue eyes wide. 'Did he see anything?'

'Well,' Mrs Swift hesitated. 'Vincent, he… He went to his friend's birthday party yesterday and stayed there till midnight.'

'And?' Tom exclaimed impatiently. I dug him in the ribs with my elbow.

'Vincent is quite old man. Besides he was a little drunk. His house is not far from mine, down the street, so he decided to take the short cut through my garden. But he felt tired on his way.'

'Oh, poor Vincent,' Nick snorted. 'Was he _very_ tired?'

'Yes,' Mrs Swift didn't notice irony in his words. 'Very tired. He even decided to have a little rest. It was behind my house, exactly near its old ruined part. Vincent found a nice place beside the wall and sat down on the ground. I don't know how long he'd been sitting there, he said that he fell asleep, but then he woke up because someone was walking nearby. He looked up and hair prickled on the back of his neck. As he put it, a black, burned as a firebrand man was walking right towards him, his head smoked. Vincent wanted to call for help, but he couldn't say a word, he couldn't even move with his arms and legs, as though they were glued to the ground. So he was just lying there, waiting what would happen next. This black man paced around, then stepped into the wall and disappeared. Only then poor Vincent realized that it was the slave trader's son, who'd died during the fire.'

There was a complete silence in the room. Everyone was stuck for words.

'Why did he think that it was the slave trader's son?' Elmo asked finally.

Mrs Swift shrugged her shoulders. 'Vincent says that he saw this slave trader and his family in a picture. But there is more to come,' she added.

'What else?' Richelle whispered, drawing closer to Nick.

'Let me guess,' Nutter Frean put in. 'After that Vincent went home and fell asleep on his bed.'

'No,' the old lady shook her head. 'That is he raced home after that, of course. But he didn't go far, because he felt even worse near the chapel.'

'Oh, did poor Vincent feel tired again?' Nick widened his eyes, pretending to look sympathetic.

'No,' Mrs Swift waved him away discontentedly. 'Something plumped in the chapel as he walked past. Then the light switched on in the windows and voices and moans were heard from inside. But this chapel has been forsaken for many years. All doors there are locked. No one could get inside. Vincent knew it and he realized that it was another ghost's prank. His legs and arms froze again, he couldn't move. So, poor Vincent just stood there till the break of day, paralyzed. Only at the crack of dawn the light faded, the voices hushed and Vincent's legs were able to move. So, he'll remember this night as long as he lives.'

'Wow!' Liz murmured thoughtfully.

'Let's start working,' I strode to the door firmly. This woman irritated me. I had enough of her stupid stories.

###

'What do you think about that?' Tom demanded as we carefully made our way through the overgrown garden to the back wing of the house.

'I think that this Vincent guy was dead drunk and saw pink elephants,' Nick answered indifferently, trying hard to save his clothes from barbed branches.

'No,' Liz protested. 'He saw something weird in two different places. I don't believe it was just ravings.'

'I agree. Something strange happened here,' Tom supported her.

'Let's have a look,' Nick suddenly turned to us, his dark eyes sparkling with curiosity.

Richelle whimpered and clutched his hand, but Liz, Tom and Elmo were also dying to see that place with their own eyes.

'No, guys!' I pleaded. 'We'd better begin to work. The sooner we start, the sooner we'll finish. We have only four free days. I don't want to spend them all here.'

'We'll just have a look, Sunny, that's all,' Liz took my hand. 'It won't take much time.'

I sighed. All our adventures start like that. Nick got curious, or Liz began to sorry someone, or Tom made a stupid joke, or Elmo wanted to receive a scoop for the Pen. And Richelle constantly complained that we got her into trouble.

Nick was already scraping through the bushes towards the chapel. Tom, Liz and Elmo followed him. Richelle gingerly trailed behind them, muttering something about spoiled shoes, broken fingernails and torn clothes. I sighed and shook my head in irritation, but followed them. What could I do?

I caught up with them near the chapel. They crowded on a small clearing beside the door and stared at the old shabby building. It looked really desolate. Paint had scaled off the building, baring the brickwork, the massive oak door had blackened with time. There was a big cavity instead of icon over the entrance. And a raven, sitting on the stub of cross on the roof, finished the picture.

'Nothing interesting,' Nick drawled in disappointment. 'It's just an old, forsaken and very shabby chapel.'

'What did you expect, Nickers?' Tom sneered. 'A corpse or a ghost in the window?'

Richelle winced.

'I reckon it was just tramps or animals, who frightened Vincent. Probably he heard their voices,' I wasn't going to believe in this stuff about ghosts. 'He was drunk, remember?'

'No, it wasn't tramps,' Elmo said calmly. 'Look over there. No one can get inside.'

He pointed at the huge corroded padlock, hanging on the door. I had to admit that this padlock couldn't be unlocked even with the best will in the world.

'What a place,' Richelle shivered. The raven on the roof croaked in reply and flew away.

'Okay,' Nick drawled. 'Let's check this place. There might be the way inside.'

He came up to the chapel and for some purpose kicked at the door with all his strength and wailed with pain instantly.

'Aw shucks!' he grabbed his foot.

'Keep it clean, Nick,' Liz recommend homiletically. 'This is a church, after all.'

Nick gave her a dirty look, but refrained from comments about the malign door.

'You cut blocks with a razor, Nickers,' Tom sneered, tapping his fingers on the solid door. 'Even if you crash yourself against this door, it won't open.'

However Elmo jerked the handle of the door. It didn't even move.

'Well, it still could be animals,' he faltered. 'Maybe they have a creep hole or something.'

'Why did it finish exactly at the dawn then?' Liz objected immediately.

'I don't know,' Elmo confessed.

'Maybe whoever it was, decided to get some sleep,' Nick drawled.

'Yeah,' Richelle snorted. 'They decided to get some sleep exactly at the dawn, and Vincent's legs were able to move straight after that. Don't tell me that it's a coincidence!'

'There's no point in staying here, arguing,' I said. 'Let's look inside through the window.'

'How are we supposed to do it?' Tom looked up.

He was right. Narrow windows situated quite high from the ground.

'Tom, you're the tallest. If you stand on Nick's shoulders you might be able to reach the window,' I suggested.

'No way,' Nick gave a sort of snort and stepped aside. Of course, he wasn't going to let Tom soil his clean, expensive shirt by Tom's shoes.

'Come on, Nickers' Tom sneered. 'You were the one who suggested that we should check this place.'

'Oooh, you two sometimes drive me mad!' Liz hissed, stomping her foot. 'Nick, if you want, _you_ can get onto Tom's shoulders and look inside.'

'Oh, all right, Kontellis, I'll do it,' Tom sighed. 'Climb up.'

'Can you?' Nick looked at him doubtfully. 'I don't want to fall.'

'Hold on to the wall,' Tom answered gibingly. 'Then you won't fall. Maybe.' He crouched. Nick sighed and after two or three tries, he managed to climb on Tom's shoulders. Tom slowly started to straighten, bracing himself against the wall.

'Be careful,' Nick muttered down to Tom. 'You're lifting a human, not a pile of bricks.'

Tom rocked a couple of times, but managed to keep his balance and finally stood upright. But as it turned out soon, Nick's nose hardly reached the window and he couldn't look inside.

'Nick, chin yourself up,' Elmo commanded. 'Tom, stretch your hands up. Nick, if you set your feet on Tom's hands you'll be able to look through the window.'

'How am I supposed to chin up?' Nick asked. 'There's nothing to catch at.'

'Hold on to the grid,' I suggested.

'But it's so rusty,' Nick picked the grid on the window by his finger, looking disgusted. 'It looks as if it's about to break any moment.'

'Jerk it,' Liz gave him a piece of advice.

Nick jerked the grid with vengeance.

'It seems firm,' he drawled in doubt. 'Wait a sec, I'll try again.'

'Listen, Kontellis, move quickly,' Tom growled. 'I'm not a weight carrying crane.'

Nick sighed and caught hold of the grid. Tom quickly raised his hands and fixed his palms under Nick's feet. Nick, standing on Tom's palms and still holding of the grid, finally managed to look through the window. But all the same, he didn't hurry to give us any information.

'Nick, don't be silent! Tell us what's there?' Liz burst out.

'There's a thick layer of dust on the glass,' Nick muttered. 'I hardly can see anything.'

'Oh, how could we forget?' Tom growled, his face bright red. 'Why hadn't anyone washed the window before Kontellis climb up to look through it?'

'Nick, just rub off the dust from the glass with your hand,' Elmo said.

'You know, Elmo, I have only two hands, not three,' Nick snapped from above. 'And I'm catching at the grid by both of them now.'

By this time I was sorry that I hadn't climbed to look through this window on my own. But it was too late to change anything.

'Nick, try to hold on to the grid with one hand,' I recommended. 'I don't think you'll fall. Tom is ensuring you after all.'

Nick followed my advice, and cleaning the glass so-so, he finally deigned to satisfy our curiosity, 'there's no sign of human or animal or anything, just empty filthy room. Nothing interesting.'

'Get down then,' Tom growled. He tried hard to stay steadily, his face was as red as a tomato, his forehead was gleaming with sweat.

Nick, catching tightly at the grid, slowly put his feet on Tom's shoulders. Suddenly there was a cracking sound above the window and a huge piece of brick flew down in centimeter from Nick's temple. Nick jerked, and Tom, who didn't expect it, rocked and losing his balance, collapsed on the ground. Nick landed right on the top of him. Tom howled wildly.

'Stop roaring, Moysten,' Nick muttered, still lying on Tom. 'There's no need to scream as if you were nearly killed.'

'Get off,' Tom shoved him away. 'You're sprawling on me like on a divan.'

Nick snorted, but stood up from Tom. 'My body is aching all over,' he complained, rubbing his shoulder.

'_Your_ body is aching all over?' Tom howled. 'I wonder how you'd feel if something like you crashed down on you!'

'Okay, we've found out that there's nothing important inside,' Elmo quickly put in before Nick and Tom started arguing again.

'Yeah,' Nick nodded.

'Can we start working now?' I put my hands on my hips and stared at them severely.

We wandered through the bushes and long grass to the back wing, took bags and spades from the hanger and started to collect old leaves in bags and gather brushwood in piles.

The others discussed Vincent's adventures for a while, then everyone deepened in their own thoughts and worked in silence. Finally the garden began to look more or less normal. At least we could walk through it without tripping over sticks all the time and snagging our clothes on the prickly branches that hang over everywhere.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2. Another strange story**

The next day was Thursday. It was a student-free day, and Friday was a public holiday, so we had free four days in a row. I hoped we'd finish with Mrs Swift's garden today or tomorrow and I could devote myself to gym.

As usual we met Elmo and Zim in the dispatch dock at the back of the Pen building at five a.m.

'Is it all right with the old haunted house?' Zim asked, smiling slyly as we loaded our trolleys. 'People say someone saw a ghost there.'

'We haven't seen any ghost there yet,' Nick answered.

'And I bet we won't' I snapped. 'As usual.'

'What I'm concern about is the Work Demons,' Tom murmured. 'For goodness sake, who could imagine that we'd be working together with the Work Demons!' he flung his arms up.

'Till Sunny's with us, we'll be safe,' Elmo grinned.

We grabbed our trolleys and split up in different sides.

###

After the Pen delivering we had breakfast and went to Mrs Swift's place. We decided to do all job in the morning to have free afternoon.

When we rang, Mrs Swift opened the door a crack and cautiously peered out.

'Oh, it's you,' she mumbled. 'Come in.'

She opened the door and let us in.

'Mrs Swift, are you okay?' Liz asked anxiously. 'Is something wrong?'

'No, no dear,' the woman shook her head. 'It's just… Oh, it's unbelievable! My neighbor saw the ghost of burned slave trader's son again.'

'What?' shrieked Richelle, clutching at Nick's jacket. He put his arm around her waist and whispered something in her ear.

Oh no, I thought. Please, don't start it again. 'Did Vincent go home from another party?' I asked out loud, quenching the surge of irritation, which raised in my chest. I was already sick with these stories about ghosts.

'No,' the woman shook her head.

'Who then?' Elmo leaned forward. Elmo believes in ghost no more than I do, but he uses any opportunity to find a good story for the Pen.

'A woman and her son,' Mrs Swift answered. 'They went home through my garden. People often do it and I really don't mind their going. This way is shorter than the way through the street. Anyway, this woman, Mrs Bridge, always laughed when someone told stories about ghosts. So she decided to take the short cut through my garden without thinking twice. Of course it was dark and filthy there, but much shorter.'

'And they got tired and decided to have a little rest, like Vincent,' Nick said, looking at her innocently. Richelle dug him in the ribs with her elbow.

Mrs Swift glanced at them disapprovingly.

'They were walking past the back block of my house,' she continued. 'The night was silent and warm, everything around was quiet. But all of a sudden they saw a man step out of the remains. Mrs Bridge decided it was a tramp or a mugger and since she had a lot of money about her, she and her son covered behind bushes. This man didn't notice them, he just paced back and forth for a while and went back through the wall.'

'Through the wall?' Elmo gaped.

'Fear has big eyes,' Nick snapped.

'Mrs Bridge said that this man slowly walked around, as though an owner was walking through his garden. And his clothes were weird and old, it looked like a gown or something. Besides he was completely black, from head to foot, and fume was rising from his head. He walked there for a while, fuming, then stepped into the wall and disappeared.'

Mrs Swift fell silent. Richelle opened her mouth to say something, but to my happiness, the door bell rang. It was the Work Demons. We left them listen to Mrs Swift's tales and went to the garden.

'What do you think about it?' Liz asked as we walked over to the back block for bags and spades.

'That some people here are nutty as a fruitcake,' Nick drawled.

'No,' Liz shook her head. 'Three different people saw something weird here. I don't think all of them had the same hallucinations. It's too strange to be just a coincidence.'

'Oh, come on, Liz,' I snorted. 'Ghosts are just tales for stupid kids. And stop talking about these gossips.'

'It's not gossips,' Elmo objected. 'No, I don't say that they saw a real ghost. I'm just saying that this house has bad history. I found something in the Pen library yesterday. About two hundred years ago, the Kingston family lived here. It was very rich family, one of the richest. Mr Kingston made his wealth by selling slaves. A lot of his slaves also lived here and worked for him, waiting when they would be sold. One day slaves decided that they'd had enough and attacked the sleeping house at night. And deliberately or not, they fired the house. By that time Mr Kingston had sent his wife and his little children to Europe. And I didn't find anything about his own destiny, I guess he managed to run away. But his grown-up son, John Kingston, was sleeping in his room that night and died in the fire. But,' Elmo held up his index finger, 'his body wasn't found. Nobody knows what happened to him. He burned down or was hauled by slaves and killed in other place or something.'

'Yeah, slaves turned this place into a crematorium,' Nick drawled gravely.

'Poor John,' Liz said, shaking her head in sorrow. 'So, he wasn't even buried.'

'Right,' Richelle nodded. 'That's why he appears here at nights. He wants to be buried as a normal human and finally leave this world.'

'What happened next?' Nick enquired curiously.

Oh ho, I thought, it's a bad sign. If Nick and Elmo get curious about this story, we will search for the explanation until we find it or find ourselves deep in trouble.

'Nothing interesting,' Elmo was saying meanwhile. 'People decided that there was no point in repairing the burning part of the house. They just rebuilt the font part. No one wanted to buy this house after that fire. When the Swifts bought it, they wanted to pull down the burned block and build new house instead, but they didn't have enough money and finally gave up.'

'Right,' Tom nodded. 'This spooky place is much better.'

'The Swifts used the chapel as a warehouse at first, until they built the new hangar,' Elmo added.

We came up to the back wing of the house. There were few big old trees around it and a small pond not far from there. Liz looked at the trees thoughtfully.

'Wow,' she said quietly. 'It was so long ago, but these trees must be remembering John and his family.'

'By the way, according to the article in the Pen, people say that John's sister drowned in that pond,' Elmo pointed to the pond.

'Poor girl!' Liz's eyes were almost wet. 'Probably slaves killed her that horrible night and threw her body into the pond.'

'No,' Elmo waved from her. 'This girl drowned of her own free will. By the way, her body also wasn't found.'

'This place is fated,' Richelle widened her big blue eyes, clutching at Nick. 'We should stay away from here. You'll remember my words soon!'

'Why did she do it?' Nick asked.

'She was sick of betrayal and meanness,' Elmo answered. 'Young lady Kingston was in love with a poor guy, but her father was against their marriage. He paid off that guy, who took money and ran away, but the girl couldn't get over it and dived into the pond forever.'

'Poor lady Kingston!' exclaimed Liz. 'I'm so sorry for her!'

'By the by, they say that lady Kingston's ghost also was seen here,' Elmo added. 'She's always in white gown with a chaplet of lilies on her head.'

'Yeah, I can see the picture,' Nick burst into laughter. 'John Kingston, burned and black as a firebrand, goes out of the wall and his drowned sister, in white clothes from head to foot, hurries to meet him. And both ghosts begin to wail around that they aren't still buried.'

'How can you be so ruthless?' Liz shook her head.

'Yeah,' Richelle gave him a dirty look. 'How can you laugh at decedents, who still roam?'

'Who cares,' Nick sneered. 'Let them roam if they want so.'

'Be careful, Nickers,' Tom smirked. 'One of them might hear you and get insulted and will start to come to your place every night.'

The grin disappeared from Nick's face instantly, he fell silent for a minute.

'Why are you so pale, Nickers?' Tom asked cheerfully.

'Let's have a look at the place where ghosts were seen,' Nick suggested, trying to look as cool as usual.

We turned to the desolate back wing of the house. Rains and time washed off the paint and soot from the walls. Big empty windows gravely looked at us. External walls ruined in some places, so we could see the inside of the building. But there was nothing to look at, it was just old filthy walls, bricks and other construction waste and nasty smell of damp and mould. This part of the house looked abandoned and sad.

'I bet it was so beautiful here before the fire,' Liz said looking at the ruined part of the building.

Wading through the piles of bricks and break stones, Nick resolutely came up to one of the walls and dabbed at it with his finger. 'According to Mrs Swift's story the ghost disappeared here,' he said.

He, Tom, Liz and Elmo started touching the brick wall with their fingers, but no matter how strongly they pushed and kicked the wall, nothing happened. The wall was absolutely solid.

'No guys. Even a worm couldn't crawl here,' finally Tom made a conclusion.

'Maybe we're wrong and that woman and Vincent saw the ghost in other place,' Elmo said.

Nick looked around. 'It must have happened here,' he objected. 'There's the track over there,' he pointed at the track behind Mrs Swift's house. Then he turned round and stabbed his hand over bushes, right opposite the wall where they were standing. 'The bushes are there. And the chapel isn't far. There's no other place like that around here,' he added.

Elmo thought for a while, then strode fast to the bushes and covered behind them.

'What are you doing?' Tom enquired.

'See for yourself,' pretending to hide behind the bushes, Elmo pointed at the wall.

'Wow!' Liz gasped.

I came up to them and peered out from behind the branches, trying to see what they saw. From that place I could see only that part of the wall, where Nick was standing. So, whatever it was, it happened exactly here.

'So?' Tom demanded. 'What do you think about that?'

'I think it was a ghost,' Liz gasped. 'We've just checked that no one could go through this wall and no one could get inside the chapel.'

'_I think_ that we'd better begin to work,' I said. 'We're paid for cleaning the garden, not for staring at this building.'

'Let's quickly check this place from inside,' Nick glanced at us slyly. 'It won't take much time.'

He was wrapped with curiosity. Now when he was really interested, nothing could stop him. As well as nothing could stop Tom, Liz and Elmo, who immediately followed Nick.

They came up to the gap in the wall. But it turned out to be impossible to get inside the house there. A wall behind this gap had collapsed and bricks blocked the entrance.

'There's no way here,' Elmo ran his hand through his hair. 'We can go further only with dynamite. Let's try from other side.'

We all turned round the corner of the back wing and came up to another gap in the wall and stepped inside. Even Richelle did. She tightly clutched at Nick's hand, but couldn't help staying aside.

In spite of the heat outside, there was cold and damp inside the remains. Like in a tomb, a disgusting association floated into my mind. We crowded in the centre of a big room, looking around. Everything around us was broken, destroyed and abandoned. Some walls'd collapsed, turning into piles of stones, bricks and other trash.

'Yeah…slaves'd done a good job,' Tom whispered, looking around.

'I want to see that wall from this side,' Nick said, carefully stepping forward.

We went through several rooms.

'I think people used to have parties here,' Richelle whispered respectfully.

'How do you know, maybe they still have,' Liz whispered back.

'Oh, shut up, Liz!' Richelle hissed, looking around nervously.

Finally we came up to the wall, where the ghost disappeared, according to Mrs Swift's story.

'Hey!' Elmo exclaimed. 'There were bedrooms in this part of the house.'

'Why do you think so?' Tom asked.

'See for yourself,' Elmo spread his arms.

We looked around and saw that he was right. Ruined rooms looked like bedrooms.

'It means that the ghost disappeared in its ex-bedroom?' Tom demanded, opening his eyes wide.

'Right. John Kingston disappeared where he'd died,' Liz nodded, her voice sounded startled.

Richelle winced and pulled Nick's sleeve. 'I've had enough. Let's go out of here!' she demanded. And she didn't have to ask twice. The rest of us turned round instantly and quickly went back. Even Nick and Elmo looked paled and startled. I just was glad to get out of these old ruined rooms.

We ran up to the gap in the wall and climbed outside. Without saying a word I strode to the hangar, took a spade and started gathering old leaves in piles. The others did the same.

###

At one p.m. we settled down to have lunch on a clearing beside the chapel. The others started speaking about ghosts again.

'This John Kingston guy wasn't buried,' Richelle was saying over and over again, her eyes wide.

'And he died a violent death,' Liz added.

'_If_ he died,' I never took such things for granted. 'He could run away.'

'Even if he managed to ran away from his nice slaves, he's dead now,' Nick drawled.

'His soul might have returned to his native land to avenge himself,' Liz gave a new suggestion.

'Or he wants to say something important,' Tom yelled, jumping to his feet. 'That's it! I read that ghosts often come to tell or warn people about a crime or a danger or something.'

'Do you think that John Kingston wanted to warn drunk Vincent or that woman with kid about danger?' Nick sneered.

'I reckon we have to find out it,' Elmo nodded.

'Oh fine! And how are we supposed to do it?' Nick went on jeering. 'I don't see any ghost to ask what he wants.'

'I have an idea,' Elmo smiled. 'Don't forget about Apollon Parnass.'


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3. Mrs Ramsey**

We all stared at Elmo.

'Right!' Liz exclaimed. 'How could we forget? In these books we can find information about ghosts and explanations how to understand them.'

'And what are we supposed to do with these explanations?' Nick scowled.

'Don't you understand it?' Tom snorted. 'If we learn ghost's language, we'll be able to know what this John Kingston wants with people.'

'Don't be ridiculous, Tom,' I snapped. 'You know that ghosts don't exist as well as I do.'

'Sunny, you're wrong,' Liz protested. 'There are too many coincidences. I'm sure that this time we deal with a real ghost. _Real_!'

'What are you discussing, kids?' I heard a familiar voice. Bradley Henshaw and his Demons came up to us.

'It's not your business,' Nick grumbled.

'Oh, easy, easy!' Nutter Frean pretended to be scared. 'You aren't afraid of scary ghosts, are you?'

'Boo!' one of them barked in Liz's ear. She jumped.

It was the last straw. I stood up. The Work Demons laughed and trailed away, giggling. They knew that it was stupid to make me angry.

'Idiots,' Tom muttered.

We collected our stuff and started to work. Soon the job for the day was finished, we received our money and went onto the street.

'Shall we go to Mrs Ramsey?' Elmo looked at us. When he was bitten with an idea of a good story for the Pen, he got very persistent.

'Sure,' Nick nodded. 'No, I'm not saying that I believe in this stuff about ghosts, but I'm curious to know what's going on here.'

'You're always curious,' Richelle muttered. 'And we're always in trouble then.'

'Sunny, please come with us,' Liz pleaded.

I hate disappointing Liz. 'Okay,' I sighed. 'But I still think that it was just bad jokes. And we'll look stupid eventually.'

'Come on!' Liz nodded happily. 'We'd better hurry up.'

'Yeah,' Nick drawled. 'I'm afraid it'll be a long, long conversation.'

'As usual,' Tom added gravely.

Before long we were walking along the street to Mrs Ramsey's house. _(see story "The witch")_

'Why are we doing it?' Richelle muttered as we strode. 'Do you really want to spend the rest of the day in her company?'

'We have to,' Elmo spread his hands. 'She's the only one, who has Parnass's books.'

We were walking along the path to the front door of Mrs Ramsey's mansion, when we heard a loud scream from the open windows.

'Get down!'

Something banged inside the house, then silence. We looked at each other in dismay and rushed to the door. At that moment we heard Mrs Ramsey's happy voice, 'Ms Smith, dear! They're saved!'

'I told you, this fellow can defend himself,' Ms Smith answered loudly. 'Oh, look! Another bandit is crawling towards them!'

'Where?' Mrs Ramsey gasped. 'I don't see!'

We looked at each other again and grinned. The two old ladies were watching an action movie. It was Mrs Ramsey's last craze. Especially they loved films with Tom Cruise. Mrs Ramsey would say that "this nice young man" looks exactly like her first husband in his youth. And Ms Smith with the same confidence repeated that Tom Cruise and her nephew were as like as two pears.

Coming up to the door, we heard new exclamations.

'Natalie! I told you, she's in love with him!' exulted Ms Smith.

'Oh, I'm happy now!' Mrs Ramsey echoed.

Nick and Richelle giggled. Liz frowned, she didn't like when they laughed at old people. Elmo calmly pressed the door bell. There were sounds of heavy steps and Ms Smith barked, behind the door, 'who is it?'

'Nicholas Kontellis. Elmo Zimmer. Thomas Moysten. Sunny Chan. Elizabeth Free. Richelle Brinkley,' we reported. To answer Ms Smith in another way was dangerous, we knew it very well.

'Kontellis? Zimmer? Free? And others?' the housekeeper didn't hurry to open the door. 'Don't you lie?'

'No, we don't!' Tom assured her vigorously.

Apparently Ms Smith was satisfied with this answer, because the lock clicked and the door opened.

'To Mrs Ramsey?' the housekeeper asked.

'Yes,' Elmo and Liz nodded in unison.

'Come in,' she stepped aside to let us in. 'We've just finished to watch the film. Natalie is in the lounge room.'

We came in and headed for the lounge room.

'Oh, the youth!' Mrs Ramsey stood up from her armchair. She looked really noble. In spite of her age, she was tall and upright, her grey hair was pulled back into an elegant twist at the back of her head.

'Hello, Mrs Ramsey!' Liz exclaimed.

'How are you doing?' Elmo asked politely.

'I'm fine, thank you!' the woman beamed. 'Come in, my friends, come in.'

So we came in and settled down in big armchairs.

'Mrs Ramsey, you have what we need,' Tom decided to get straight to the point.

'Feed? No dear, I've already had lunch,' Mrs Ramsey didn't hear him properly. 'Although that food hardly can be called "lunch",' she added dramatically.

'You didn't hear…' Tom started to explain, but at that moment the housekeeper stormed into the room.

'You can't call it lunch?' she exclaimed. 'But it was you who told me to cook steaks without salt!'

'No, darling,' Mrs Ramsey glared at her. 'You shouldn't have baked cakes. I told you that I'm on a diet and cakes are forbidden for me now.'

'For goodness sake! She's completely deaf!' Ms Smith threw her arms into the air.

'I'm not deaf!' Mrs Ramsey heard her quiet words properly.

'I'm telling you about steaks, not cakes,' Ms Smith grumbled loudly.

'I've told you a thousand times that I can't eat cakes!' Mrs Ramsey stomped her foot.

'Ooh, it's hopeless!' the housekeeper waved her hand. 'It's just like a broken telephone!'

'What? The telephone is broken?' Mrs Ramsey startled. 'Why didn't you tell me? Take my mobile phone and call the phone company and arrange for the repair man to come!'

Ms Smith muttering that someone really needs the repair man, but it's not the phone, raised her head in an aggrieved sort of way and went out of the room, stomping loudly. Tom, Nick and Liz were shaking with silent laughter in their armchairs. Liz secretly wiped tears from her eyes.

'You're right, dear, it's a very sad situation!' Mrs Ramsey announced, nodding to Liz. 'My dear Ms Smith is going insane!'

There was sound of clattered dishes from the kitchen. Apparently the housekeeper heard Mrs Ramsey's remark.

'And the more,' Mrs Ramsey whispered trustily to us, 'it's getting worse and worse. I even want to find a good doctor, who could cure my poor Tina.'

'I'll show you who should be cured!' a quiet, but emphatic exclamation was heard from the kitchen.

Mrs Ramsey didn't hear it, but it did no good for us. We all squiggled in our armchairs, trying hard not to laugh.

'So, my dear friends!' to our happiness, Mrs Ramsey didn't notice our strange behavior. 'What's new?'

'Nothing interesting,' I said as clearly and loudly, as possible, thinking how to twist the conversation into the right turn.

'Oh, I have something new – Tom Cruise!' announced Mrs Ramsey. 'It's so nice young man! And he's so handsome! And he acts so naturally!'

'Here we go!' Tom mumbled quietly. 'She'll be raving about him till midnight.'

'Shut up if you care your life, Moysten,' Nick hissed.

'You're right, young man,' Mrs Ramsey turned to Tom. 'I can look at Tom Cruise till midnight! You don't believe, but when I saw him for the first time, I realized instantly that this is a new incarnation of my beloved Apollon!'

'Apollon?' Nick exclaimed. 'How interesting!'

The conversation had the right turn and Nick wasn't going to miss this opportunity.

'You're right, young man, it's very interesting,' Mrs Ramsey replied. 'By the way, Tom Cruise looks exactly like my unforgettable Apollon in his youth.'

'Did you know young Apollon?' I couldn't help saying. As far as I knew, when they'd met, Apollon Parnass was old enough to be her grandfather, or even to be her great-grandfather.

'Alas! We met too late,' she answered in dramatic sort of way. 'But I saw a lot of his photographs. Unfortunately all Apollon's photographs were burned in the fire, which had started in a motel room, during one of my trip. I and my friend managed to escape through the window, but our things were burned.'

'Apparently after this fire she completely lost her last wits,' Tom whispered in my ear.

I grunted with laughter and Liz looked at me severely. Fortunately, Mrs Ramsey went on raving about that fire and didn't notice anything around.

'It's unbelievable, but it was my beloved Apollon, who save me that day,' she was speaking. 'His ghost came to me and made me go outside through the window a minute before the fire.'

'It's amazing!' Liz sounded quite sincerely.

'It's a madhouse!' Tom's voice whispered beside my ear.

'So, I don't have any Apollon's photo,' Mrs Ramsey kept talking. 'But I'm not upset, because his ghost often came to me. Besides, I can talk to him when I'm reading his books.'

Saying this, she stretched her hand to the big book case, where several Apollon's volumes were sitting.

'You're absolutely right! We also derived much pleasure from reading one of his books,' Nick said, trying hard to smile sincerely.

'I'm very glad, dear,' Mrs Ramsey glanced at him approvingly. I glared at him. Nick was lying, he hadn't read a line from Apollon's book, which we borrowed not long ago. But he didn't take notice of me, of course.

'When people are interested in Apollon books, my heart fills with happiness,' beamed the old woman.

'There will be a lot of happiness in her heart soon,' Tom commented her words quietly.

I couldn't stand it anymore and dug him in the ribs with my elbow. Tom wailed. Mrs Ramsey gave him a dirty look, but didn't say anything.

'Can we take other Apollon's book to read?' Nick asked, giving her one of his most charming smiles.

'Of course, my young friend,' Mrs Ramsey nodded.

Elmo stood up, came up to the book case and took out five books, one by one. Looking through the titles, he stretched the shabbiest one to Mrs Ramsey.

'Can we borrow this one?' he asked.

The woman put on her glasses and looked at the title.

'It's the final book!' she exclaimed. 'You know, it's weird that people take interest in this book. One scholar borrowed it not long time ago. And six fellows, who called themselves Work Demons or something, have dropped in today and begged to give them this book to read.'

We looked at each other. The Work Demons? It was obvious that they were up to something.

'Mrs Ramsey! Please give this book to us at least for a day!' Elmo pleaded. 'We know those guys. If you want, we'll read this book quickly and will give it to them tomorrow.'

Mrs Ramsey thought for a while.

'No, Elmo,' she said firmly. 'I know you better than those fellows, so I want you to take this book. And you don't have to hurry, you can bring it back when you want. But be careful, this book is priceless as a treasure!'

'We will, Mrs Ramsey!' Liz assured her. 'Thank you very much!'

'I'll give another Apollon's book to these Work Demons,' Mrs Ramsey added, smiling. 'I think they also should read it if they want to. So, my dear friends, go and enjoy reading!' she instructed us as a war chief before a final battle.

We said goodbye and went outside. As soon as we walked on the street, we all burst into laughter.

'I told you, it's a madhouse,' Tom giggled.

I glanced at the book Elmo was holding in his hands. Its title was long and tangled: "Ghosts among people or transcendental reality of our life".

'_What_?' Tom stared blankly at the cover of the book.

'You should study better at school, Moysten, if you want to understand smart words,' Nick reacted immediately.

'Drop dead, Kontellis!' Tom roared. 'Elmo, why on earth have you taken this rubbish?'

'Rubbish?' Elmo ran his eyes over the few first pages. 'It's not rubbish,' he mumbled. 'As far as I can see, there is a detailed description of ghosts' behavior. I guess we'll find here explanations how to understand what the ghost wants. But I need a quiet place to read it.'

'Well well,' Tom jeered. 'Just be careful, Elmo! You'll learn how to understand ghosts and Apollon Parnass personally will come to you to discuss something. And he'll bring a pack of his ghostly photos.'

'Where he looks exactly like Tom Cruise,' Nick laughed.

'Let's go to the Pen office, it's the quietest place today,' Elmo said, ignoring them. 'We can read it there.'


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4. Apollon Parnass's method**

We sat at the table in the back room of the Pen building. Liz opened the book on the first page and started to read out loud.

«Introduction. A phantom, as a numinous substance, has a tendency to manifest with relative constancy. This constancy in its metaphysical meaning is more obvious, because a ghost, or fata morgana, exerts its main and relatively natural properties of full or partial materialization of our visual perception, as a whole of its individual and moral features. In view of...»

'Are you kidding?' Tom wailed.

'I'm telling you, Moysten,' Nick laughed, 'you should study better at school!'

'Don't tell me that this stuff can be studied at school!' Tom clenched his fists.

'Shut up, you both!' Elmo exploded suddenly. 'I'm sick of you two!'

Tom and Nick fell silent and stared at him in surprise. I could understand them. Elmo is always so quiet, silent and reasonable, but arguments between Tom and Nick can drive anyone up to the wall.

'You two had better respect other people,' Elmo went on shouting. 'Liz is trying hard to read it for you. She is twisting her tongue, pronouncing this…'

'No matter how much she twists her tongue, it's incomprehensible,' Tom interrupted him.

'I think,' Richelle said seriously, 'that we have to be a little insane, like Mrs Ramsey, to understand this text.'

'Oh, don't worry about it, Rich,' Nick exclaimed cheerfully. 'If Liz reads this book for us to the end, we'll all go insane.'

'Well, I seem to seize the gist of the text,' Elmo put in.

'Really? And what is the gist here?' asked Nick in his most sarcastic voice.

'We-ell…' Elmo drawled. 'Apollon Parnass says about ghosts, which come to alive people to…'

'Are there ghosts, which come to dead people?' Nick's mouth curved into a smirk.

'Shut up, Nick,' I said severely. Nick glanced at me, but didn't say anything. He knew that unlike Elmo, I could make him be sorry.

'I'll read this book on my own, like the previous one,' Elmo said.

'Very good,' Tom agreed easily. 'At least some of us will be normal.'

'Very diplomatic words,' Nick snorted.

Liz stood up. 'Let's go then,' she said. 'We'd better leave Elmo alone.'

###

When I came home, mum was sitting at the kitchen table, working on the documents.

'Sunny,' she called.

'Yeah?'

She glanced strictly at me. 'Why did you take that Apollon Parnass's book from Mrs Ramsey?' she asked flatly.

'Elmo wants to write an article for the Pen about the ghost, which lives in the house, where we work,' I shrugged.

'About the ghost?' my mum raised her eyebrows in surprise.

'Yeah,' I nodded. 'Mrs Swift, the owner, says that people saw the ghost of the previous owner in the old part of the house.'

'Does Elmo believe it?' mum asked, shaking her head.

'Elmo believes in everything, what can be turned into a good story for the Pen,' I answered. 'People like spooky stories, you know.'

'Nonsense! I didn't expect it from Elmo!' mum shook her head. 'Oh, by the way, Mrs Henshaw called me about two hours ago to complain that her son hadn't taken this book because of you. She said that without this book he and his company couldn't go further in their researches or something. Please, don't tangle with them, Sunny.'

I nodded and went upstairs.

###

Elmo called me that night, his voice was trembling with excitement.

'I know!' he announced. 'We'll invoke the phantom.'

'Why?' I asked blankly.

'What why?'

'Why are you going to invoke it?'

'I want to talk to him,' he explained.

'How?' I couldn't understand.

'I spent the whole evening, reading this book,' Elmo's voice sounded tired. 'And now I know how to understand what's going on.'

'Don't tell me that you've read and understood this awful book,' I smirked.

'To tell the truth I didn't understand everything,' Elmo admitted. 'But I managed to catch the main gist.'

'And what is the gist?'

'The gist is very interesting,' Elmo replied briefly.

'Tell me more,' I demanded.

'I'll tell details tomorrow,' Elmo answered. 'Now I want to read something else. Tomorrow after work we'll discuss it with the others. Okay,' he yawned, 'I'd better go to read before I fall asleep.'

###

The next morning we met at Mrs Swift's gates. Elmo held the Parnass's tome under his armpit.

'Are you going to schlep this book around all the time?' Nick snorted.

'You never know,' Elmo grinned. 'Maybe I'll be an expert in Apollon Parnass's oeuvre soon. I've read two of his books already and that means something.'

'Let's finish our job,' I opened the gate.

At that time the Work Demons appeared at the corner. Henshaw pressed other Apollon Parnass's tome to his chest. The six of them looked very proud of themselves. They pushed Tom and Liz away and went past us. Henshaw opened his mouth to say something, but right at that moment he noticed the book under Elmo's armpit and wolfish expression crossed his face.

'Run, quickly!' Elmo commanded quietly. 'Otherwise we'll lose our Apollon.'

We all raced towards the entrance of the house.

'Hey! Stop! Stop!' Henshaw shouted. 'Let's exchange books!'

'Keep dreaming!' Tom panted. 'You'll get this book when two Sundays come together!'

The Work Demons ran after us. Together we rushed inside the house. We knew we were safe there, the Work Demons wouldn't dare to fight with us in front of Mrs Swift.

Ten minutes later we trudged through the garden to take the implements from the shed.

'Why does everyone chase us?' Tom muttered.

'It's our karma,' Nick sneered.

'The square of destiny,' Elmo added.

'Square of what?' Tom glanced at him gravely.

'Square of destiny,' Elmo grinned. 'It's the main tendencies, which appear on our way of perception the truth.'

'_What_?' Tom's jaw dropped.

The rest of us also stared at Elmo. He went pink.

'Well, in our case the square of destiny isn't important,' Elmo said vaguely. 'Listen, this book is quite interesting,' he went on. 'In this tome Parnass summarized all information about ghosts, from Middle Ages to the beginning of the twentieth century. But I think we'd better start working now, I'll tell you more during lunch.'

###

Collecting old leaves in my bag, I came up to the small pond, which was in the back part of the garden, not far from the chapel. Its dark water seemed gloomy, and old willows, dropping their branches into the water, looked as though they were mourning about lady Kingston and her brother. The place was fairly spooky, it looked as if shadows of ex-owners of the house had been hiding behind old trees. I quickly turned round and went back to the others.

At one o'clock we sat down on the clearing behind the house to have lunch. Elmo carefully put Parnass's book on the ground next to him.

'I reckon that we should find out what's going on here,' he said, unpacking his peanut-butter sandwich. 'And if it's a real phantom of John Kingston, though I still doubt it, we should understand what he wants.'

'How are you going to understand it?' Nick raised one eyebrow. 'Ask him, will you?'

'Yes,' Elmo nodded. 'We'll invoke him and ask.'

'What?' the others stared at him. 'What do you mean?'

'I've found an interesting way of invoking a phantom here,' Elmo jerked his head at the book. 'Apollon says he often did it.'

'It's silly to believe in everything this old man says,' I drawled doubtfully.

'Well, there's no harm in trying,' Elmo shrugged. 'At worst nothing will happen.'

'And we'll easily get over it,' Liz added.

'But if it's true and we manage to see the ghost, we'll be able to know what he wants and probably can prevent a trouble,' Elmo went on.

'I agree,' Tom exclaimed excitedly. 'What should we do?'

Elmo wiped his fingers on a paper napkin and grabbed the book. There were a lot of bookmarks there.

'Wow! You've done a great job!' Liz exclaimed admiringly.

'I tried hard,' Elmo started to turn pages, smiling proudly. 'Bingo!' he found the right page. 'It's here.'

'Are you going to read it out loud again?' Tom wailed.

'No,' Elmo grinned. 'I just want to refresh something in my mind. So, Parnass had been watching different kinds of phantoms. At the beginning of the twentieth century he went to famous wizards, shamans and clairvoyants and wrote their experience in his books. He even managed to find an old Indian tribe, which had lived in the mountains in Peru. The chief of this tribe knew an ancient way of invoking phantoms and Apollon managed to draw this secret out of him. He returned home and started carrying out experiments. As he said, this method of Peruvian Indians always worked.'

'What's the method? Come on, Elmo, tell us!' Tom yelled impatiently.

'The method was described in details, that's why it took me so much time to understand what is what,' Elmo responded. He pulled out a piece of paper from the book. 'So, step first: to take a natural skull. Step second: to put on a long black robe. Step third: to paint the face with white clay. The white clay can be replaced with white paint. Step fourth: to paint a red mark as big as your own eye in the centre of the forehead, as a symbol of the third eye. Step fifth: to come to the place where the ghost appears and describe a circle on the floor. Step sixth: to take the skull in the left hand and a burning candle in the right hand. Step seventh: to eat a piece of cola nut before the experiment…'

'What is the cola nut?' Tom interrupted.

'A nut with a slight narcotic effect,' Elmo answered.

'Have you got it?' Tom asked a new question.

'Do you think I'm a drug dealer?' Elmo resented.

'Where will we get it?' Liz looked at him.

'Don't worry,' Elmo replied calmly. 'I reckon that a glass of Coca-cola or Pepsi-cola can replace it. Both drinks contain low doses of this nut.'

'Elmo, you're so clever!' Liz exclaimed admiringly.

Elmo smiled shyly and poked his nose into his papers.

'The experiment can be run from midnight to three a.m. You shouldn't eat anything ten hours before the experiment, otherwise, as Parnass says, you'll load you material substance and the contact with a parallel world won't happen.'

'_What_? We can't eat anything at all? _Ten hours_?' Tom howled in horror. It was like a torture for Tom, who wanted to eat all the time, to starve during ten hours.

'Don't be afraid, Tom,' Elmo grinned, looking slyly at us. 'In this case, nothing threatens to your stomach. Only one person can't eat, it's the one who will invoke the ghost. And I think it will be Nick.'

Nick stopped chewing his sandwich and stared at Elmo.

'Me?' he swallowed finally. 'Are you kidding?'

'Right,' Tom agreed easily. 'We'll follow the scheme. Elmo reads, Nick runs the experiment and Sunny, Liz, Richelle and I are a support team.'

'No way,' Nick shook his head. 'I'd had enough with our last experiment.'

'Elmo, I can try,' Liz suggested doubtfully.

'No,' Elmo shook his head. 'Parnass says it must be a man.'

'That's sexist,' I put in.

'Parnass says that only male energy can be used for this experiment,' Elmo shrugged. 'Besides the medium must know the spell by heart, I don't think I can learn it so soon. And can you imagine Tom starving for ten hours? So Nick is the only one who can do it.'

'Nick, please!' Liz pleaded. 'Aren't you curious? And think about reward,' she pressed on his weak spot. 'If we save someone's life, he or she will be grateful to us.'

Nick looked down on the ground and didn't say anything. I almost could see curiosity and desire to get the reward struggling with his common sense. To tell the truth I hoped he'd say "no", because I still thought it was a stupid idea and only Nick was on my side.

'Ah, all right,' he sighed finally. His curiosity won, as usual, and I was one to five now. 'But you'll owe me.'

'Great!' Tom yelled.

'You all are hopeless, guys,' I shook my head.

'You're outvoted, Sunny,' Tom patted my shoulder.

'Okay, now,' Elmo went on. 'At the place where the phantom was seen, the medium should stand on his left foot and count to seven, then he should do the same on the right foot. After that he should take a deep breath and say the spell. The spell is quite difficult, but I think Nick, with his wonderful memory will have learnt it by heart by tonight.'

'_Tonight_?' Nick choked. 'Don't tell me that you're going to do it _tonight_!'

'I'm going to do it tonight,' Elmo nodded.

'I agree. The sooner we'll know what John Kingston wants, the better,' Liz supported him.

'And today's Friday, it'll be easy to sneak out tonight,' Tom added.

'So, Nick, I think you'd better stop eating,' Elmo said importantly.

'Right! Eat up your sandwich, Nickers, and I'll eat another one,' Tom quickly grabbed Nick's second sandwich.

Nick scowled, but didn't say anything. I wondered why he'd agreed. It wasn't like him. Maybe he liked to feel himself as the most important person in the group. Or maybe he couldn't let Richelle think that he was afraid.

'Can I drink?' he enquired in his fake-politest tone.

'You can drink, of course. Plain water would be best,' Elmo smiled and handed a bottle of water to him.

Nick took the bottle and sipped silently for a while, then he looked up at us. 'I just want to know,' he drawled with an angelic smile. 'Where our celebrated sorcerer Elmo Zimmer is going to get a natural human skull?'

Elmo gaped at him. Trying hard to read Parnass's book, he apparently forgot that human skulls didn't grow on trees and you couldn't buy them in a shop.

'I…didn't think about it,' Elmo muttered thoughtfully. 'Think, guys, think.'

'Maybe a toy skull will be appropriate?' I asked.

'Firstly, where did you see toy skulls?' Nick raised one eyebrow.

'And secondly,' Elmo said gloomily. 'Parnass clearly said, "a natural human skull".'

'What do we do?' Tom's face fell in disappointment.

'I know,' Richelle said for the first time. During the conversation she sat quietly beside Nick, examining her perfect fingernails. Now she was looking at us, her big blue eyes wide. 'We can use Mrs Ramsey's second husband's skull.'

'Second husband's skull?' I shuddered.

'Are you saying that…that Mr Ramsey was buried without his head?' Liz stammered.

'No!' Richelle stared at her. 'Why do you think so?'

'But you say that Mrs Ramsey has his skull,' I shook my head.

'What means that he was buried without head,' Nick couldn't find other explanation.

'This woman is mad,' Liz whispered. 'I'll never go to her place again.'

'No, we have to,' Tom objected. 'We need her skull.'

'Why don't you listen to me?' Richelle yelled. 'I'm telling you, it's not her or her husband's skull. That is it's his skull, but not from his body, it's from another place!'

We all stared at her, she stared back, blinking at us with her wide, blue eyes.

'_What_?' I asked, trying to keep my patience.

'This skull is from archeological excavations,' she said. 'Dad told me that Mr Ramsey took part in an archeological expedition, this skull was the first thing he'd found and he decided to keep it as a relic.'

'That's great,' Elmo cheered up. 'The older the skull, the better.'

'And how are you going to take this old skull?' Nick drawled. 'How will you explain why we want to borrow it?'

'I'm afraid Mrs Ramsey won't understand,' Liz shook her head.

'So, we have only one way,' Tom shrugged. 'When we finish here, we'll go to Mrs Ramsey's place and one of us will creep into Mr Ramsey's study and steal the skull, while the others will be destructing her. After the experiment we'll plant it back. I don't think she'll notice the skull disappear.'

We discussed details for a while and then went back to work.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5. Operation "Skull"**

I was collecting grass clippings into a bag, when I heard Elmo's voice behind bushes.

'I'm afraid we'd better hurry,' he was saying. 'According to Parnass, it was so-called warning ghost. They come to people to warn them right before the danger.'

'How much time do we have?' Tom asked.

'From several hours to three days,' Elmo replied.

'You mean that something awful might happen to Mrs Swift or someone else even before midnight?' Liz sounded quite anxious.

'Theoretically yes,' Elmo confirmed. 'But it still could be jokes, don't forget it.'

I went further. To tell the truth I was sick of these conversations about ghosts. Deep in my thoughts, I filled a bag with grass clippings, leaves and some trash and when the bag was full I tied it and left. Then I pulled out a new bag and filled it again.

Suddenly I heard a movement behind bushes. I peered through branches and shook my head in irritation. There were Nick and Richelle under the big tree. Nick was lying on the ground and Richelle sat on the top of him, they were kissing. Nick's hands were on her ass, Richelle stroked his hair. They were so enrapt in each other, that didn't notice anything around.

I didn't say anything, just went further, cramming leaves into my bag and trying to keep myself calm. It looked as if I was the only one, who wanted to finish this job. Okay, Nick and Richelle often faked off when job was boring, like this, but even Liz and Elmo, who always worked hard, were wrapped up in this ghost's stuff.

###

At last the job was finished and we gathered in Mrs Swift's lounge room. That is only Tom, Liz, Elmo and I were there. Nick and Richelle joined us later. They both were neat and good-looking as usual, their eyes sparkling.

Anyway, we received our money and went outside.

'Now we should maintain an operation "Skull",' said Tom as we walked along the gravel path towards the road.

At that moment the front door threw open and the Work Demons burst outside. Apparently they also finished their part of job and looked very concentrated on something.

'Do you understand?' Henshaw snarled. 'If you let me down…' he noticed us looking at them. 'Why are you standing here, kiddies? Get out!'

We turned round and strode quickly down the street, we didn't feel like consorting with them.

'It seems to me that they are going to do something,' Liz said quietly.

'I don't care what they do until they disturb us,' Tom waved his hand.

'Hey! Why are you so hurrying?' Henshaw's voice snarled behind me. I looked back. He was alone and tried to keep up with us.

'Drop dead,' Nick grumbled.

But Henshaw kept walking beside us.

'He wants something from us,' I whispered to Liz and Elmo.

Liz nodded. 'What do we do?' she asked quietly. 'We can't go to Mrs Ramsey's place with him.'

'You're right,' Elmo mumbled. 'But from the other hand, the more people will be there, the better. And Tom and Henshaw will create a good noise background. I think we can risk.'

Liz nodded again. I catch up with Nick and whispered in his ear, 'do as we planned. But keep your eyes on Henshaw.'

Nick nodded and pressed the doorbell of Mrs Ramsey's mansion. The door threw opened without any questions. Instead of Ms Smith, Mrs Ramsey appeared in the doorway in a beautiful silk dress. She held a box with disk in her hand.

'Oh, my young friends!' she beamed. 'Come in! I need your help!'

We all came into the large beautiful living room.

'My daughter gave me another film with Tom Cruise,' Mrs Ramsey started to explain. 'But I can't insert this disk into the DVD-player. Help me, please!'

'Sure,' Tom nodded. 'Let me show you how…'

'No,' Nick cut in strictly, 'you'll do it only over my dead body.'

'There are no dead bodies,' Mrs Ramsey objected. 'It's a drama.'

'I mean that Tom isn't good with electronic stuff,' Nick explained loudly. 'Give me this disk, Moysten, I'll do it on my own,' he grabbed the box.

Tom, clutching at the disk, started to explain to Mrs Ramsey, that if there was someone, who didn't get on with electronic devices, it was Nick.

Strangely enough, but Mrs Ramsey heard properly his words.

'No, no, my friends,' she exclaimed anxiously. 'I need a specialist!' And she also tried to take the disk from Tom's hands. But Tom wasn't going to give up, and the poor disk was attacked already from three sides.

'Let me do it, Mrs Ramsey,' Henshaw put in. 'I know very well how to make your DVD-player work.'

But Tom wouldn't yield the disk to Bradley for all the riches of the world. 'Get away!' he growled.

'I just want to help,' Bradley pulled at the disk.

'My young friends!' Mrs Ramsey exclaimed anxiously. 'Please, be careful! You'll spoil it!'

'Guys! Stop that!' Liz pleaded, trying to stop them.

Richelle was standing as far as possible from them, her face in her hands. 'How embarrassing,' she murmured.

I noticed that Elmo wasn't in the room. Probably he decided to take the opportunity to steal the skull from Mr Ramsey's study.

Tom, Nick and Bradley didn't pay any attention to Liz and Mrs Ramsey. The box with disk began to crackle already. Tom panted. Nick, tugging at the disk, tried to kick Tom, but Tom ducked with unusual legerity. Henshaw also pulled at the box with disk, puffing like a grampus.

When the box was about to break, we heard a loud noise from the kitchen. Nick, Tom and Bradley stopped fighting and stared at each other in dismay. Mrs Ramsey took the opportunity to slide the disk away from the boys and pressed it to her chest. Soon Ms Smith stormed into the lounge room with Elmo in tow. He was bright red and held a skull in his hand.

'Look here, Mrs Ramsey!' Ms Smith barked. 'I caught this young man red-handed. He tried to steal the historical skull!'

'I can perfectly see that you're hysterical, 'Mrs Ramsey said crossly. 'I want you to explain what's going on. Why are you terrorizing my friend Elmo?'

'I was just looking at the skull,' Elmo mumbled.

'He's lying!' the housekeeper barked. 'He wanted to steal it!

'Ms Smith, don't be so rude with the poor fellow, who didn't eat!' Mrs Ramsey didn't hear her words properly. 'Let him go!' she ordered. 'And bring tea and cakes!'

'For heaven's sake!' exclaimed Ms Smith. 'These kids want to rob the house, and you're going to drink tea with them, instead of reporting to the police!?'

'We don't want to rob the house!' Liz resented, blushing.

'Why did this young man take the historical relic?' Ms Smith kept enquiring.

'I told you, I was just looking,' Elmo mumbled. 'And wanted to ask…Um…Mrs Ramsey, may I borrow it for a few days?'

'No,' Ms Smith grabbed the "historical relic". 'This skull is very expensive! Do you know how old is it?'

'Ms Smith!' yelled Mrs Ramsey. 'I told you to make tea for my young friends! Elmo dear, why do you want to take this skull?'

'Er…I…' Elmo hesitated, looking at us pleadingly.

'It's for Sunny,' yelled Tom. 'Sunny needs it for her tai-kwon-do class.'

'For tai-kwon-do?' The woman raised her eyebrows.

'Yeah,' Tom nodded, smiling silly. 'Her couch says that she will be more successful if she trains, looking at a skull. He says it must strengthen her military mood. Come on, Sunny,' he turned to me. 'Say something.'

'Um…yeah, Tom's right,' I mumbled, shaking my fist at him secretly. 'Can I borrow your skull for a few days?'

'Of course, darling,' Mrs Ramsey nodded.

'Thank you,' I said. 'We'll return it soon.'

'If you don't, I personally will deal with you,' Ms Smith snarled behind my back. 'It's unbelievable! To let kids take such expensive thing!'

She put the tray with cups and dish full of delicious-looking cakes on the table. We took a cup of tea and a cake each. Nick took only a cup of tea.

'Nick, why don't you eat cakes?' Mrs Ramsey asked.

'I'm full, thank you,' Nick muttered, looking enviously at us.

He sat in his armchair patiently for a while, but when he saw Tom cram fifth cake into his mouth, he stood up.

'I'm sorry, Mrs Ramsey, but we have to go,' he said.

'No, we don't,' Tom didn't agree.

'Yeas, we do have to go,' Nick repeated severely through clenched teeth.

Tom sighed, but stood up. We said goodbye and left the welcoming house. As soon as we went onto the road, Henshaw turned to us.

'Why did you take this skull?' he asked, his face alive with curiosity.

'We're not going to share our plans with you,' Nick replied rudely and strolled down the street. We all followed him.

'How will we get rid of him?' Liz whispered in my ear.

'Bradley, we have to go,' I said loudly.

'Sure,' he grinned. 'Where do we go?'

'What do you want with us?' Elmo mumbled quietly.

'Listen, Brad, we're going to a farm now,' Tom announced to our great astonishment. 'Its owner, Mrs Bridge, promised to teach us how to milk a cow!'

Tom was at his best that day, because a second later we found out that it was the best way to get rid of Henshaw.

'To milk?' he gaped. 'It's… disgusting!'

'It's not disgusting,' Elmo smiled. 'You drink milk, don't you, Bradley?'

'So, will you come with us?' Tom enquired in his fake-friendliest tone.

'You'll get yours, Moysten!' Henshaw snarled. 'I can assure you, your parents'll know how you spend your weekend!'

He turned round and strode away. We didn't wait he'd change his mind and walked quickly to the Pen office.

'A big scandal is about to break,' Nick shook his head when we settled down in the back room.

'Never mind,' Elmo patted the skull gently. 'Probably everything will be ended tomorrow.'

'I'm afraid my father won't hold out so long,' Nick sighed. 'The evening is going to be very difficult.'

'You're not alone,' Tom grinned. 'Brian will go mad tonight.'

'Why?' Richelle looked at them with a puzzled expression on her face.

'Can you imagine what our parents will learn about us?' Tom raised his eyebrows.

'They already know that we took Apollon's book about mysticism,' Nick added. 'I'm sure that Ms Smith will have reported to them about the skull by tonight. And Henshaw's mother will finish the picture, telling that we went to milk a cow together with the book and the skull. I don't know about yours, but my father is going to hit the roof when he hears about it!'

'Yeah,' I mumbled. 'Even my mum won't understand it. Okay, just repeat that legend about my coach.'

'That he told you to milk a cow with the skull and Parnass's book?' Tom laughed.

'Yeah,' I nodded. 'Tell them that my coach says that I'm getting closer to the nature through milking and it makes me get closer to perfection, or something like that.'

'I'm afraid my father won't swallow it,' Nick drawled doubtfully.

'I'm sure everything will be all right,' Elmo said, looking at his watch impatiently. 'Now let's discuss details and go home. We should have a rest and Nick has to learn the spell.'

'Right,' Liz nodded.

'So listen,' Elmo began. 'Everyone except Nick should cover their faces with black masks with holes for eyes. I think black tights will fit. Girls, can you make five masks?'

'Sure,' Liz replied.

'Clothes also must be black,' Elmo went on. He glanced at Nick thoughtfully. 'It's all right for us, but the medium must wear a black long poncho. Nick, have you got something like it?'

Nick thought for a while and shook his head.

'Think guys,' Elmo looked at us. 'Which one of you has something like a long black poncho?'

We fell silent, thinking. None of us had something like that. Suddenly an idea popped into my head.

'Mantle!' I yelled. 'Mum's mantle will perfectly fit!

'Mantle?' Liz repeated

'Yeah,' I nodded. 'When mum'd graduated from the university, she was wearing a black mantle. It still hangs in her wardrobe. I don't think she'll notice we take it. The mantle is black and quite long.'

'Great!' Elmo beamed. 'Now, Tom do you have white and red paint for Nick?'

Tom nodded.

'Good,' Elmo went on. 'Now. Whatever happens during the experiment, everyone, except Nick, must be silent. Only medium can talk with the ghost.'

Everyone nodded again.

'Nick, you must find out what this ghost wants,' Elmo turned to Nick. 'Ask as many questions as possible, don't be shy. And don't be afraid, we'll be there with you. And you,' he glanced at us, 'watch the ghost attentively. Nick might miss something. Every single gesture of the ghost can be very important.' He ran his eyes over his note. 'That's all,' he said finally. 'I suggest that we should meet at the Glen at one a.m. Our parents will be sleeping at this time, I don't think it'll be a problem to sneak out. We'll wait for fifteen minutes and then go. Who will be able or want to come must be there till one fifteen. And don't forget to bring everything what I told you.'

'Yes, boss,' Tom saluted.

'Now you all go home,' Elmo said. 'We should have a rest.'

'And I have to learn the spell,' Nick added.

'And I have to steal mum's mantle,' I sighed.

Afterwards I couldn't understand why I let Elmo draw myself so easily into this strange story.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6. Too many ghosts**

At one a.m. a very strange company gathered in the Glen. Strangely enough, but everyone came, even Richelle. Although I think that was because Nick's parents were away that night and she didn't have to trudge alone through the dark streets, because they came together.

In the Glen we put on our black masks. Richelle smeared Nick's face with white gouache, Tom had given to her, and painted a red circle on his forehead. Now Nick's face glimmered whitely in the dark, and in the moonlight the red "third eye" looked like a black hole in the centre of Nick's forehead, what made us shudder. Even me.

'You look really horrible,' Tom whispered over and over again.

'Give me the mantle,' Nick ordered.

I handed a plastic bag to him. Nick pulled out mum's mantle from the bag.

'Why did you bring cloth hanger?' he enquired.

'I didn't have much time,' I explained. 'Mum was in her room, working. She went out only one time to answer the phone, so I had to act quickly.'

'Don't worry, we'll hide it here,' Elmo crammed the cloth hanger into bushes.

Meanwhile Nick put on the mantle, which turned out to be longer than necessary. Its flap swept the ground. Nick made several tottering steps, tangled in the skirts of the mantle and nearly fell.

'No, it's impossible to wear it,' he said.

'Pull the flap of the mantle up and hold it,' Richelle recommended. 'Like ladies held their gowns in old times.'

Nick did what she said, but stumbled again.

'I don't know how ladies went in their dresses. I can't,' he quickly pulled off the mantle. 'I'd rather put it on behind Mrs Swift's house.'

'Are you ready?' Tom looked at us. 'Can we go?'

Even through black tights mask I could easily see that he was quite afraid. So were the others. Even I felt uneasy. We crept out of the Glen and made our way to Mrs Swift's house through deserted side streets and back yards. Nick was unusually silent and I could understand that.

As well as Vincent and Mrs Bridge, we took the short cut through Mrs Swift's garden and came up to the back block of the mansion. Fortunately Mrs Swift didn't mind people's going here, so no one could accuse us of invasion into a private property.

The night was warm and quiet. Remains of the burned wing of the house hovered in the dark like stage sets. Everything seemed unreal. Elmo came up to the wall where people saw so-called ghost.

'Shine here,' he whispered to Tom. 'I'll describe a circle and then you'll switch the torch off. The ghost should see only candle light.'

Tom turned the beam of his torch on the floor. Elmo pulled out a piece of chalk from his pocket and described a big circle. Then he lit the candle. Nick meanwhile put on the mantle again.

'Switch off the light,' Elmo commanded quietly. Tom did as he was told. Now, only flattering candle flame was casting vague gleam on the mysterious wall.

We stepped into the circle. Nick took the skull in one hand and the burning candle in another.

'Don't step out of the circle,' Elmo warned us.

We nodded silently.

'Ready?' Elmo asked a new question.

We nodded again.

'Here we go,' Elmo whispered.

We joined hands with each other. Nick hesitated for a moment or two, then pulled himself together and did all manipulations Elmo had told him to do. After that he stood upright and very quietly pronounced the spell in a strange language, which was called, as Elmo'd said, Peruvian Indians' language.

I opened my eyes and looked at the wall. As soon as Nick said the last word of the spell, a black figure stepped forward right out of the wall.

We froze. My heart started leaping madly in my chest. The figure was exactly like Mrs Swift described it – a black man in black filthy robe, his head fuming. Suddenly the ghost screamed, it was the most ear-splitting scream I've ever heard. Nick also gave a shriek, which the rest of us took up instantly. Me included. Then our fearless medium dropped the candle and the skull onto the ground and bolted away without a backward glance. The rest of us didn't wait what'd happen next, though, and scampered after him so fast, we wouldn't leave footprints.

All of a sudden a white figure arose on Nick's way. Nick stopped dead. We crowded behind him. I had to admit that by that moment I'd completely lost my sanity, I was in a panic as well as the others. I felt as if my legs had glued to the ground. There was another ghost with white face and black holes instead of eyes, in front of us. Light wind moved slightly pleats of its white cerement. The ghost didn't move. Neither did we.

'Lady Kingston!' Richelle shrilled. 'Drowned girl!'

The drowned girl gave a high-pitched shriek and flung into the bush. We heard loud rustles and crackle of twigs behind the bush, as if someone big was trying to get out of there.

'There's something in the bush!' Richelle screamed.

'Ru-un!' Liz shrieked.

She didn't have to repeat. We ran away from the bushes where the white ghost'd disappeared. We were running at an incredible speed through bushes and vines, that caught at our clothes, running through the dark streets. No one even tried to stop to recover the breath.

At last we burst into the park and were running towards the Glen, when Nick trod on the skirts of the mantle and rammed at me. Together we crashed down onto the ground. But I discovered it later. At that minute, in the darkness, I was sure that I was seized and thrown down by the ghost.

But which of them? A stupid thought flashed across my fogged mind. 'Is it black or white ghost? Or both?

I tried to stand up, but tripped over my own feet and fell down again right on the flap of Nick's mantle. He collapsed onto the ground and we tumbled down the hill, sliding on the wet grass, tangling more and more in the mantle.

The university mantle entwisted us as a cocoon so tightly that we couldn't move hand or foot. Besides, I still thought that I was seized by the ghost, who wanted to drag me into the underworld. I decided that I wouldn't give up and twisting all over, I tried to tear myself out of ghost's grip.

'Sunny! Stop that!' the ghost cried in Nick's voice. 'You're hurting me!'

The others ran up to us at last and started to untangle us. It took quite long time for them to set us free. When they finally managed to untie Nick and me and to haul us to our feet, we discovered that mum's mantle was in awful state. As Nick put it, now our family heirloom was fit only as a showpiece for a Fame Hall of a military museum, where it could represent a banner, taken from a battlefield after an artillery attack.

Damage was easy to see even in the torch light. The mantle was tore here and there and spattered with mud, there were several Nick's and my footprints on an exquisite cloth.

'I don't think Mrs Chan will be glad to see her beautiful mantle in such state,' Liz shook her head.

'I don't even doubt,' I said flatly.

'We'll carry it to a dry-cleaner's when we finish with it,' Nick said.

'And I'll darn it afterwards,' Liz offered.

'I just wish mum wouldn't know that the mantle had disappeared,' I sighed. 'Otherwise I'd have to lie that it was eaten up by a very big moth.'

'Mantle, mantle!' Tom shouted. 'Can anyone explain what it was?! Did we see real ghosts?' he looked around in fear.

'Let's go to my house,' Nick suggested. 'My parents are away tonight. We'd better discuss it there.'

'It's all right for you,' Tom muttered, trembling all over. 'We'll have to go home alone in the darkness after that.'

'You can stay at my place till the break of day,' said Nick. Obviously he didn't want to stay alone in the big empty house either.

Anyway, we all took Nick's offer. None of us wanted to go home alone in the dark.

After our night adventures, lighted rooms of Nick's house seemed very comfortable. As soon as we pulled off our masks and Nick washed paint off his face, everything what had happened to us behind Mrs Swift's house started to seem unreal. Besides, Nick immediately announced that he was as hungry as a wolf, what wasn't surprising. The others, especially Tom of course, also were glad to eat something.

Before long we were sitting at the table in the kitchen, chewing sandwiches and drinking hot chocolate.

'So, Nick, did you distinguish the ghost?' Elmo started enquiring.

'Was it John Kingston?' Liz put in.

'I don't know,' Nick mumbled.

'You should have looked at him more attentively,' Tom said reprovingly.

'Where were you?' Nick resented. 'You also could look at him attentively.'

'How could we?' Tom exploded. 'Firstly this ghost shrieked our heads off, then you screamed, then everyone ran…'

'Yeah,' Nick drawled. He went pink, what happens rarely. Obviously now he was ashamed of his running away.

'Elmo, did you understand what John Kingston wanted to say?' Richelle asked.

'To tell the truth I didn't even understand if it was John Kingston,' Elmo confessed.

'I'm sure it was him,' Liz said without doubt. 'Otherwise drowned Lady Kingston wouldn't have appeared.'

'I can't explain her appearing,' Elmo shrugged. 'We didn't invoke her. Nick followed Parnass's instructions properly, I'm absolutely positive'

'Maybe she came to help to her brother,' I suggested.

'Why?' Richelle flicked her fair hair back with annoyance. 'We just wanted to talk to him. There was no need to help him and scare us half to death. And what about that noise in the bush? It could be a monster!'

'Don't be stupid, Richelle,' I snapped. 'Of course it wasn't a monster.'

She pouted and started to examine her not-so-perfect after this night fingernails.

'Parnass didn't say anything about help,' Elmo pointed out.

'I can't understand why he screamed,' Liz said thoughtfully with her hands wrapped tightly around her cup.

'Probably Nick frightened him,' Tom sneered. 'Imagine what you'd feel if you see such white face with a black hole on the forehead. Plus Nick held a skull in his hand…'

'A decedent of all creatures shouldn't be afraid of a skull,' I shook my head.

'Tell you what,' Elmo murmured thoughtfully. 'I think that the ghost screamed for some reason.'

'Yeah?' Tom leaned forward. 'Why?'

'As far as I remember,' Elmo started to explain, 'Parnass says that if the ghost screams or moans, it means that someone is in a real danger, which is about to happen.'

'Unfortunately we don't know who's in danger, thanks to Nick,' Tom sighed.

'You could run the experiment, Moysten,' Nick grumbled. 'I didn't mind.'

'It's not Nick's fault,' Elmo said reasonably. 'We all ran away. So I reckon we have to repeat the experiment tomorrow.'

'By the way! Where's the skull?' I reminded them about the "historical relic".

We looked at each other in dismay. Only now we realized that we'd left the skull somewhere behind Mrs Swift's house.

'We have to go back,' I exclaimed. 'Otherwise Ms Smith'll kill us!'

'Let the one who dropped it there go back,' Tom muttered.

Nick looked down in his cup, scowling. By his expression I could understand that he completely didn't feel like going alone to the haunted house in the dark.

'We'll go there together at the crack of dawn,' Elmo said calmly.

'Right, it'd be fair,' Liz supported him.

'We have no choice,' I nodded, agreeing with them.

'Yeah. I guess that's the square of destiny,' Tom looked sideways at Elmo. 'Without the skull we can't invoke the ghost and Smith will kill us.'

He was right. I couldn't even imagine what Ms Smith would do with us if we didn't return Professor Ramsey's "historical relic".

'Listen, I think I know who's in danger,' Elmo said in a low voice. 'I reckon it's Mrs Swift. The ghost was seen only in her mansion and only by her neighbors. Probably he tried to warn them to keep their eyes open. Parnass described a lot of such cases.'

'You're right,' Liz whispered, widening her eyes. 'We must help her.'

'Liz,' I groaned. 'How can we help her if we don't even know who threatens to her?'

This is it, I added to myself. I've never taken seriously stories about ghosts or something. And Nick always laughed at Richelle, Liz and Tom, who believed in this stuff. But I saw that wall with my own eyes. As Tom said, even a worm couldn't creep through it. Nevertheless, that man went out right from that wall, and he looked so…black and inhuman. Obviously, it was time for me to believe in ghosts. It was still hard to believe, though.

'Listen, I have an idea,' Liz interrupted my thoughts. 'Okay, John Kingston wanted to warn us about something, but Nick got scared and ran away. That's why John Kingston sent his sister to meet us half way. Do you see my point?' she gave us a meaningful look. 'His _drowned_ sister.'

'So what?' Nick asked. He was a bit annoyed because everyone pointed that he'd got scared and ran away.

'Ooh! I understand!' Richelle whispered. 'He meant that someone is going to be drowned.'

'Who? Mrs Swift?' I stared at them.

'I guess so,' Richelle shrugged.

'We'll go to Mrs Swift in the morning and tell her not to come close to the pond!' Liz exclaimed firmly.

'You know Liz, people can drown even in a bath,' Nick raised one eyebrow.

'Then we'll tell her not to wash or have a shower until we find out everything,' Liz insisted.

'Liz, if someone really wants to drown Mrs Swift, he doesn't care if she has a shower or not,' Elmo said softly. 'Philosopher Pascal used to say that human can be killed even by one drop of water.'

'I don't want to discuss philosophy now,' Nick waved from him impatiently. 'Tomorrow night we'll find out what John Kingston wants to say. I won't get scared this time.'

'Are you going to repeat it?' Richelle stared at him.

'Yes,' Nick said crisply. 'Now it's personal.'

Tom looked at them and smiled to himself, but didn't say anything.

I looked through the window. The day was breaking, morning twilight was gradually thinning, birds were singing in the garden.

'Let's go,' I stood up. 'If someone finds this skull before us, we're dead.'

'I…I…won't go there,' Richelle stammered.

'Come on Rich, I'm with you,' Nick put his arm around her.

'All…the same,' Richelle shook her head vigorously. 'You won't help if Lady Kingston drags me into the pond.'

'No one will drag you anywhere,' Nick coaxed. 'This Lady Kingston will be sleeping till next night.'

'We don't know if ghosts sleep or not,' Liz didn't seem to go to the haunted house either. 'Let's go there this afternoon.'

'Liz, we have to go _right now_,' I said reasonably. 'Someone might find the skull and we'll never see it again.'

'Tell you what,' Elmo cut in. 'We'll escort the girls to their home and then Nick, Tom and I will go to Mrs Swift's mansion.'

Liz and Richelle instantly agreed that it was the best decision. Richelle said that her legs were about to fall off and she was afraid to fall asleep on her way. And Liz added that she didn't see a point in such big company's going for only one skull.

'Well, I'll go,' I snapped. Now at the dawn, night events seemed to be a sort of misunderstanding. Now I couldn't believe in ghosts again and wanted to find out what had happened there last night.

So, as soon as we'd escorted Liz and Richelle to their houses, the boys and I strode quickly to the old mansion and quietly crept through the garden to the back block. It didn't take much time for us to find the skull.

'Poor skull,' I bent down and picked it up. 'Oh, look,' I glanced up at the boys, 'a piece split off from it.'

'I'm afraid Smith will split off a piece from our heads,' Nick reacted immediately.

Elmo took the "historical relic" from my hands and examined it attentively from all sides. To our happiness only one little piece was split off from the skull. We dropped on hands and knees and started to search it among stones.

'Bingo!' Elmo finally exclaimed with relief. 'Thank goodness!'

'I can't understand your happiness,' Nick drawled, glancing at him gravely. 'Ms Smith won't appreciate if you return this historical relic by pieces.'

'We'll carefully glue this piece to the skull, so nobody will notice it,' Elmo gingerly put the piece of skull into his pocket. Nick and I, meanwhile, started to examine the mysterious wall, from which the ghost'd appeared, but we didn't find anything interesting or unusual

'Listen, maybe I'm wrong,' but I'd like to get some sleep,' at last Tom exploded.

'So do I,' Elmo agreed.

Nick and I also were exhausted, of course. Besides, Mrs Swift could get up and see us, what we didn't want. So, we quickly walked through the garden towards the road.

'My parents will be away at least till the evening,' Nick said. 'Come to my place as soon as you get up. We have a lot to discuss.'

'Sure,' we agreed.

'And our parents won't suspect anything then,' Tom added.

We nodded again and split up.

###

Cautiously I opened the door of my home and crept inside. The house was quiet and calm. I slid into my bedroom, which I shared with Kathie. She seemed to be sleeping.

Pulling off my clothes I tried hard not to forget to wind up the alarm clock. I _should_ set the alarm clock for nine a.m., I kept saying to myself, crawling into warm bed. No, for eight a.m. will be better. Or maybe for ten thirty? A tempting thought suddenly floated into my mind. I don't think the others will get up earlier…obviously at this thought I fell asleep.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7. The Work Demons' adventures**

'Get up!' I heard Kathie's voice, which seemed very distant.

'Mmph? It's too early,' I mumbled, without opening my eyes. 'The alarm clock hadn't gone off yet.'

'It'll never go off,' she smirked. 'It's unwound.'

'Go away,' I muttered drowsily and turned over, pulling the quilt up to my chin.

'Is she still sleeping?' I heard mum's anxious voice. 'Sunny, why don't you get up?' she cherishingly bent over me. 'Do you feel well?'

'Yes!' I opened my eyes instantly. I got up, had a shower, ate my breakfast and decided to have a short run before going to Nick's place.

I was jogging along the street when I heard Bradley Henshaw's voice from Nutter Frean's garden. Bradley and Nutter were telling something in exited voices.

I don't like eavesdropping, but this time temptation was stronger than me. I quietly crept up to the hedge and crouched down, pretending to tie my laces.

'I'm telling you,' Nutter was saying quite loudly. 'Bradley and I saw real ghosts last night!'

'Oh, sure,' one of the others smirked. 'And it was John Kingston himself, wasn't it'

'To be honest we didn't see who it was,' Henshaw spread his hands.

'How could you?!' sneered Darren.

'That's because the ghost appeared too early and he was really scary!' Henshaw explained.

'We tried to invoke the ghost according to Apollon Parnass's book, that old duck had given to us,' Nutter added. 'And it worked.'

'And where did you see it?' the others didn't seem to believe them.

'Not far from the burned block of Mrs Swift's mansion,' Bradley explained seriously. 'That's why we think that it was John Kingston, the son of the previous owner, who'd died there long time ago.'

'And what was it like?' the others sounded interested now.

Bradley started telling excitedly. From his incoherent story I could understand that when the Work Demons heard about the ghost, they realized that it was their chance to outshine the Teen Power Inc for once and to see their picture in newspapers. They even found a literary historian, who'd agreed to help them with the difficult Apollon's book. This historian told them to take the final Apollon's book, but Mrs Ramsey had given that book to us. So, they chose other book, which was written earlier than ours. In this book, Apollon, who hadn't visited Peruvian Indians yet, suggested another way of invoking phantoms, which he'd learnt from a Scotland hermit.

When the Work Demons heard about it, they decided to invoke the phantom of John Kingston and talk to him. They weren't smart enough for this, of course, but their new friend agreed to help.

So, they did everything what Parnass had recommended. First of all, they missed dinner before the experiment. Then they took a white bed sheet and cut a hole in the centre for the head and using safety pins, they managed to make something like a long shapeless garment. After that they made a cap with two holes for eyes out of a white pillowcase.

Henshaw, Frean and their new mate took these white garments, a silver cup, a bottle with water, a piece of old bread, a golden ring and a walking-stick, which they'd borrowed from Henshaw's grandmother and went to Mrs Swift's place under cover of darkness.

They settled behind a big bush not far from the back block of Mrs Swift's house. Henshaw, who'd been appointed the medium, put on the white garment, while Natter and the historian were pulling off other things for the experiments from the bag. Suddenly they heard blood-curdling screams and loud stamping of feet. They froze and listened attentively. Stamping became louder, someone was approaching to them. Bradley crawled out of the bush to find out what was going on and his heart sank down into his shoes. A black ghost with ghastly face and hole in the centre of its forehead was running right towards him.

Bradley froze. The black ghost stopped dead in front of him and didn't move either. He wasn't alone. There were other underworld creatures with black faces behind him.

At this place of the story Bradley flung his arms up and said in triumph, 'it was demons! Real demons, I'm telling you! Their faces were as black as soot and their eyes glowed brightly!' he was raving. 'And they had tails and horns!

'Then one of them shrieked!' Nutter interfered. 'Its voice was horrible, just like from the hell. So, Bradley rushed back into the bush and we ran away from there.'

'Demons ran after us, shrieking something in their inhuman voices,' Henshaw lied passionately. 'They almost grabbed us, but fortunately we managed to escape.'

After these words I couldn't help grunting. The Work Demons fell silent instantly.

'There's someone here,' one of them whispered with fear.

I decided that I'd better go before they saw me and jogged further.

###

I met Liz and Tom on my way to Nick's place.

'I have news,' I said, smiling meaningfully.

'What news?' Liz stared at me.

'Very interesting news,' I tried to stay serious, but couldn't help laughing. 'Hurry up! I'll tell everything at Nick's house.'

When we came to Nick's house, Elmo was there. They both looked tired and anxious. I couldn't help noticing dark circles under their eyes.

'What's up?' Tom demanded.

'Maybe some of us got some sleep last night, but it wasn't me,' Nick replied gravely.

'When I came here we decided to glue the skull up,' Elmo explained. 'We carefully glued the split-off piece onto its place, but all the same, it still was very noticeable.

'Then we decided to polish it,' Nick added. 'But it did even worse. The skull lightened a bit and Ms Smith would notice it for certain. So we started to tone it.'

'It's drying now,' Elmo sighed.

We came into the kitchen. There was the skull, a tube of glue and several cans on the table.

Tom noticed a big delicious-looking cake, which Mrs Kontellis had left for Nick and immediately announced that he was hungry. Nick rolled his eyes and sighed heavily, but stood up and put on the kettle. Liz rushed to help him.

Before long we were chewing chocolate cake and drinking tea.

'By the way, I saw Lady Kingston this morning,' I said, looking calm as usual.

'What?!' Tom choked. 'When? Where?'

'Not far from here,' I sipped my tea unhurriedly. 'She was talking to the Work Demons.'

'Get out of here!' Elmo gaped. 'Ghosts can't talk.'

'Apparently some of them can,' I grinned. 'Lady Kingston, for example, perfectly can. And her name is Henshaw, not Kingston.'

'Sunny, what are you talking about?' Liz shouted.

I told them the story about Bradley and Nutter's night adventures. Soon we all were screaming with laughter.

'By the way, Henshaw said that they'd repeat the experiment,' I added when everyone calmed down.

'When?' asked Elmo.

'Tomorrow,' I answered. 'He said they are going to have a little rest today.'

'Nick,' Elmo turned to him, 'if today you…'

'Sure,' Nick nodded firmly. 'I'll do it today. Don't worry, I won't run away this time.'

'Hey, where's Richelle?' Liz enquired suddenly, looking around.

'She's asleep,' Nick murmured briefly.

'What?' Liz stared at him. 'I called her this morning, her mother said that she'd already gone.'

'She had,' Nick nodded.

'Where's she then?' Elmo also started to worry. 'I hope she didn't get into trouble.'

'Oh, she's okay, don't worry,' Nick mumbled, glancing at Elmo in a strange sort of way. 'She's here, in my room,' he added a minute later, hiding his face in his cup.

'Why is she sleeping?' Tom stared at him.

'She…what's that to you?' Nick resented suddenly. 'It's our private life.'

'Oh, I see,' Tom winked at Liz. They both were smiling.

'It's not what you think,' Nick snapped.

'How do you know what we think?' Tom grinned all over his face.

'Let's discuss what we're going to do. I've got better things to do than chattering here all day long,' I put in quickly. Unlike Liz and Tom, I completely didn't want to know why Richelle was sleeping in Nick's room. They aren't little kids and can do anything they want, it's not business of ours.

'I have to starve again,' Nick sighed heavily. 'It's so difficult.'

'Nick, starve, please! Just one more day,' Liz begged.

'We owe you a big dinner at the Black Cat café,' Tom yelled.

Nick grinned and nodded.

We sat there for a while, talking and then arranged to meet in the Glen at one in the morning and went home. The rest of that day we spent quite flabbily. After lunch we all got some sleep, even me, though I hate to sleep in the daytime. And I couldn't help admiring with Nick, who managed to starve for the second day in a row.

###

At two in the morning we stood near the back block of Mrs Swift's house. Well the boys and I did. Liz was caught on her way out of home and Richelle called and said that her parents weren't asleep yet and she couldn't come, but I think she just didn't want to go.

Anyway, we smeared Nick's face with white paint and painted the red spot on his forehead. Then we put on our masks, and Nick pulled on the filthy mantle, which smelled of damp and old leaves.

'Yuck!' Nick wrinkled his nose.

'Quite the opposite,' Tom smirked. 'It's the most familiar smell for ghosts and decedents.'

'Give me the skull and candle,' Nick commanded, ignoring him. 'But be careful with the skull, it won't get over the second repairing.'

Elmo handed the burning candle and the skull to him and took my hand. I took Tom's hand.

Nick quickly did all manipulations of the ritual and said the spell. I shut my eyes and open them again, expecting to see the black figure.

But nothing happened. There was no one except us.

'Where's he?' Nick's whisper sounded quite disappointedly.

'May be he doesn't want to talk tonight,' Elmo shrugged.

'You probably have forgotten something, Nick,' Tom suggested.

'I haven't forgotten anything,' Nick muttered confidently.

'Don't argue, just think better,' Tom insisted. 'You could miss or confuse something.'

'Nick, please think,' I pleaded.

Nick seemed to think for a while and then he clapped his hand over his forehead.

'I know,' he whispered. 'I forgot to count seven standing on my right foot. Are you ready to repeat?'

We nodded.

'Don't confuse anything again,' Tom reminded him.

'Shut up,' Nick hissed.

'This is it,' Tom mumbled reproachfully. 'I saved the experiment and now I'm being insulted for that.'

'Shh,' Elmo shushed. 'Don't provoke him, Tom.'

Tom pouted and fell silent. Nick repeated his manipulations for the ritual, but when I opened my eyes, I didn't see anything but the dark wall.

'No, he doesn't want,' Elmo sighed. 'Or he's offended with our running last night.'

'Or our medium has forgotten something again,' Tom sneered.

We stood there, looking at each other in disappointment. All of a sudden a muffled, but quite loud sound made us nearly jump out of our skin. It was as if something big had thudded not far from the place where we were standing.

'What's that?' Tom asked through chattering teeth.

'Shh,' Elmo hissed. We didn't dare move, just stood there quietly, listening attentively. But there was a complete silence, interrupted only by birds or whisper of leaves.

'I think it was somewhere near the chapel,' Elmo whispered finally.

'Let's have a look,' I suggested.

Nick quickly pulled off the mantle, switched on his torch and trudged through the long grass towards the chapel. We followed him, looking around and listening attentively all the time. The dark shadow figure of the chapel gloomed in the darkness.

'Can we have a look in the daytime?' Tom mumbled, his teeth were chattering so loudly that I could easily hear them.

Nick and Elmo didn't bother to answer, just went further.

We were approaching to the chapel when suddenly there was a loud squawk and a very big and black raven dived at us, scaring us half to death. We crouched in horror. The raven flew up and sat on the top of the dome, squawking loudly.

'Why aren't it asleep?' Nick's voice was shaking.

'Probably it's not a plain bird,' Tom replied in sinister whisper. I glared at him, but he wasn't joking now. He looked really scared.

'A plain bird wouldn't sit on the chapel, squawking at night,' Elmo agreed with Tom.

Fortunately the raven stopped squawking and looked down at us in a sinister silence.

'Okay,' I pulled myself together. 'Let's see what could thud here and go home.'

I stepped up to the door. It was still locked, the big padlock didn't seem to be touched. We went around the chapel, but didn't notice anything unusual. Everything was peaceful and quiet. So, we had no choice but to go home. The second sleepless night told on us. Having trudged home I fell asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8. Trapped**

We all slept till ten, some of us even till eleven a.m. In the morning everyone had things to do. Tom's stepfather, my mum and Liz's mum decided that we should do some housework at home, Nick went somewhere out with his parents, Richelle went shopping with a friend of her and Elmo wrote his article.

So, when we met in the Pen office late in the afternoon, Nick unexpectedly announced that we had to wait with the next experiment till tomorrow.

'Why?' Tom demanded.

'Because I had lunch,' Nick confessed reluctantly.

'How could you?' Liz exclaimed indignantly. 'How can you eat when we still don't know what John Kingston wants us to do?'

'You know, Liz,' Nick snapped, defending himself, 'I have to eat at least sometimes. Besides, my parents were at home and if they saw that I wasn't eating, they'd think I'm sick. But tomorrow is another thing. The main part of the day we'll spend at school and in the evening, my parents are going to the Terzises and will stay there till the next morning. So no one will disturb us tomorrow.'

'We can wait,' Tom agreed with Nick for once. 'At least we'll sleep well tonight.'

'Besides, today we can do some research work and learn something about John Kingston,' Elmo looked at us importantly.

The rest of us stared at him.

'What do you mean?' I asked.

'Are you going to visit the underworld and ask demons about him?' Nick raised one eyebrow.

'I'm sure we'll find something about the Kingston family in the Pen library,' Elmo went on, ignoring him. 'This family left the marked impression in Raven Hill's history, there must be something about them in the oldest papers.'

'Right!' Liz jumped to her feet. 'Let's go there!'

It was Sunday and the Pen office was deserted. We went through the dim hall and came into the library. Zim was there, checking something in a big volume.

'Oh, hello!' he greeted us. 'I haven't seen you often lately.'

'We were busy,' Tom put on a meaningful look.

'Business?' Zim smiled.

'To rest, to eat, to sleep – that's Tom's business,' Nick drawled.

'We want to read the oldest issues,' Elmo came up to the bookshelf and pulled down several old volumes one by one. He laid them down on the table and brushed the dust off with his palm.

We sat at the table and began to turn yellowed pages, scanning articles. Well, only Liz, Elmo, Tom and I did. Richelle said that she couldn't read these old, dusty newspapers because they would dirty her clothes and spoil her fingernails. So, she sat as far as possible from us, reading a magazine and sighing heavily from time to time. Nick sat with us, but he turned old pages so cautiously, as though they were covered with dead bugs.

It was really old newspapers, full of different and funny stuff, but no one from the Kingston family was mentioned.

Soon we distracted from our task, looking through ads sections. None of us could even imagine that in the middle of the century so much modern things were invented. The Pen offered to buy electrical kettles and coffeemakers, strange ovens and even an automatic typewriter. But this typewriter had a steam engine, not electrical.

'Cool thing!' Tom laughed out loud. 'You're typing and this thing is puffing like a steam train.'

'It could inspire the writer,' Liz giggled. 'For example, if the writer wanted to write a story about the railroad.'

'Jackpot!' Elmo exclaimed. 'Look here!'

We crowded behind him. He pointed at the headline "Famous people of Raven Hill". I ran my eyes over the article. The author told about famous people, who ever lived in Raven Hill. From this article we learnt that John Kingston'd graduated the Oxford University and returned to Raven Hill a few days before the slave rebellion. He was a young, budding mathematician, very handsome, suave and honest. Everyone loved this nice young man, especially girls. In Oxford John made a great discovery in mathematics and continued working at it when he returned into Raven Hill. But as fate had willed, he died, paying for his father's sins. There were several photographs at the bottom of the page. The caption under one of them read: John Kingston at graduating dinner, Oxford.

I looked at the picture. A black-haired, good-looking man in a dress coat was sitting at the table in a luxurious room.

'What a handsome guy,' Richelle feasted her eyes on young John. 'He looks like an Italian here.'

'Just a plain guy,' Nick snorted jealously. 'There's nothing interesting in him.'

'There is!' Richelle protested. 'Oh, I think it's awful to die when you're so young. Poor John.'

'You're right, Richelle,' Zim supported her. He leaned over Elmo's shoulder and looked closely at the picture. 'Good photo. Elmo, why don't you use it for your article?'

'Right!' Elmo beamed.

'I think this guy doesn't look like that man, who came out of the wall,' I pointed out.

'As though you remember that man,' Nick snapped.

'Sunny's right. There is nothing in this good-looking guy from that awful, black man,' Richelle put in. She'd already finished reading her magazine and now was sitting on Nick's laps, checking her long hair for split ends.

'John is alive and kicking here, at the picture,' practical Elmo said. 'And the ghost was burned. No wonder that they aren't similar.'

'Probably you're right,' I had to admit.

Nick just looked blankly at the picture in silence. 'I wonder, what the Work Demons are doing,' finally he raised his head, glancing at me thoughtfully. 'What if they really go to invoke the ghost tonight?'

'Aha!' Tom jumped on his chair. 'John'll come and tell them everything and The Work Demons will be on the top, while we'll be fooled.'

'What bars us from following them and seeing everything with our own eyes?' Elmo suggested. 'We'll learn everything.'

'Another sleepless night is coming,' Richelle grumbled.

'But this time I don't have to starve, that's the point' Nick winked at her.

But as we soon discovered, it was too early to celebrate, because when my mum phoned to ask me to buy some food on my way home, she told that The Demons' mate, the historian, had been sent to hospital with pneumonia.

'Poor "Lady Kingston the drowned girl"!' Nick jeered when I told them this news. 'He'll never see black demons again.'

'The competitors fell out,' Tom added cheerfully.

'You're ruthless,' Liz glanced at them pitifully. 'Don't you know that pneumonia is a dangerous disease? I'm so sorry for him'

'Aren't you sorry for us?' Tom grinned. 'We had two sleepless nights at a run!'

'Why do you think they won't go without this historian,' I shrugged.

'I doubt it,' Elmo shook his head. 'The Work Demons don't have brains to understand Apollon's philosophy.'

'So, today we have a rest,' I summarized. 'To be honest, I don't mind.

'More to the point, Sunny, _tonight_ we have a rest,' Tom held up his index finger.

'All what you want is rest and sleep,' Liz exploded. 'Think about Mrs Swift, who's probably in danger!'

'Liz, we've been thinking only about Mrs Swift since we began to work at her place. As for me, that's enough,' Richelle grumbled.

'How you… How can you?' Liz glared at her.

'Liz, there's nothing we can do now,' I said reasonably. 'And Tom's right, we had two sleepless nights at a run. We must get some sleep tonight, otherwise we'll be sent to hospital as well as the Work Demons' mate.'

But Liz wasn't convinced with my words and harped on the same string about Mrs Swift and danger and ghosts. But this time she was alone, no one supported her, even Tom. In the end she gave up and we said goodbye to each other and went home. Everyone had things to do on the last day of the weekend.

We spent the rest of the day quite flabbily, though. I did my homework, trying hard to keep my eyes open. Elmo drowsily helped his dad in the Pen office. Tom, Liz, Richelle and even Nick fell asleep so tightly that their parents managed to wake them up only before dinner. It had worried their parents. Richelle's mother even phoned to my mum and asked for her advice, because in her opinion, Richelle was falling sick. 'Never mind,' my mum said into the phone. 'It's just a magnetic storm. A lot of people are spiritless and inactive today.'

Mrs Brinkley calmed down and thanked my mum. She also said that she'd pass this information to Nick's mother, who'd been persuading her son to measure the temperature for half an hour.

###

Monday morning began with a nasty surprise. When I came into the dining room, mum was as black as a thunder-cloud.

'Sunny, I don't know what's going on with you,' she began gravely.

'What's wrong?' I asked cautiously.

'As if you don't know,' she snorted.

I knew too much to understand why mum was unpleased, so I just put on a casual look and glanced at her as innocently as I could. 'I can't even imagine what I did wrong,' I said.

'Well, first of all I don't like that my daughter lies to me,' mum frowned.

'Lie? Me?'

'You know, I hate when people lie,' she exclaimed with pathos.

Probably she found out that the mantle'd disappeared, a thought flashed across my mind. And what am I supposed to do now?

'Sunny, tell me what's going on?' my always calm mother shouted. 'First you and your friends scrounged a book from that old woman and then you returned to her to take a skull!'

'Oh, skull,' I sighed with relief. 'Yeah, mum, we needed it,' I added, smiling stupidly. Thank heavens, she doesn't seem to know about the mantle, I thought.

'Why did you take her skull?' mum kept enquiring.

'My coach advised,' I shrugged, avoiding looking in her eyes. 'I told you, remember?'

'Nonsense!' mum exclaimed. 'I think I have to speak to the gym manager about your coach. He can be a member of sect or something.'

'No, no mum,' I shook my head vigorously. 'My coach says that the skull is a war symbol, it was used for stimulating a military spirit for fighters even in ancient times. That's all!'

Mum looked at me steadily. 'Okay,' she said at last. 'But please, don't scrounge anything else from Mrs Ramsey.'

'Sure, we won't,' I answered dubiously.

'Now,' mum went on, 'tell me about milking. What does _it_ mean?'

'Nothing,' I mumbled. 'My coach says that people get back to nature through milking and it would be useful for me, because tae-know-do fighters must be in harmony with nature.'

'What are you talking about?' mum scowled. 'I've never noticed a love for nature in you.'

'Just the opposite! I liked milking!' I tried to sound sincerely, though it was hard, because I was afraid even to come closely to a cow.

'Liked?' now mum's eyes were sparkling with rage. 'I'm going to call the gym management. Right now!'

'Mum, please! Let me solve my problems on my own,' I pleaded. 'Don't you trust me? I promise that I'll never come close to a cow or take something from Mrs Ramsey!'

Mum thought for a while, then nodded.

'Okay,' she said in her usual calm voice. 'I trust you, Sunny. But I insist that you should return to Mrs Ramsey her skull.'

'We didn't take her skull, mum,' I assured her. 'This skull was from archeological excavations.'

Mum couldn't help smiling. 'Don't give me your runaround,' she said, smiling. 'Go to school.'

###

At school I found that the others had the same conversation. All of them, except Elmo. He honestly said everything to his father and they laughed at this situation together. But Liz and Richelle and Nick's parents were about to forbid them to contact with the gang.

'The main thing,' Elmo said at lunch, 'is to run the experiment tonight. I hope nothing will disturb us. If tonight we contact with John, Mrs Ramsey will receive her historical relic safe and sound tomorrow.'

After lessons we met at the school gates. The sky was covered with dark, heavy clouds. There were dim flashes of lightning somewhere in the distance, followed by low grumbles. The air was still and humid. We wandered slowly along the street.

'What an appropriate weather for invoking the phantom,' Tom mumbled over and over again, looking up in the sky.

'Maybe this John likes thunderstorms, how do you think?' Nick grinned.

'Maybe,' Elmo was also worried. 'But what are we supposed to do if it's raining?'

'I hope we'll manage to reach the mansion,' Liz said hopefully.

'If it's raining hard, we won't be able even to light the candle,' I shook my head. 'Without candle it's useless, you know.'

'Damn! I starved the whole day for nothing!' Nick grumbled, shoving his hands into his pockets.

'Nick, it's too early to worry about it,' Liz patted his shoulder reassuringly. 'Maybe the thunderstorm will pass Raven Hill by.'

'I don't think so,' I said calmly. 'The sky is too dark. And the air is so hot and still, how it happens before a storm. I'm sure, the thunderstorm will start soon. Besides, rain is good for the crop.'

'I don't care about the stupid crop!' Liz shouted angrily. 'It's the matter of life and death for Mrs Swift…'

'The crop is also the matter of life and death for someone,' I objected.

'Liz, calm down,' Elmo said reasonably. 'Thunderstorms usually don't last long, it probably will finish till midnight.'

'Yeah,' Tom sighed. 'I wish it started right now and finished before we go.'

'Why don't you send a letter to the sky, Moysten,' Nick drawled. 'Write "put yourself, dear angels, in our place, and cancel the thunderstorm, please, because we need to talk to John Kingston".'

I wasn't in the mood for arguing between them, but to my, or their, happiness, we came up to the place, where I had to turn off to go down to my own street. We arranged to meet at the Glen at one a.m. as usual and I went home.

The rest of the day the sky was covered with dark clouds, lightning flashed every several minutes. Thunder growled in the distance, but the rain didn't start. The thunderstorm was going around Raven Hill, as though it was teasing us.

All the same, we decided to go. So, at quarter to one in the morning I sneaked out of home and ran for the Glen. Nick, Richelle and Elmo were there. By the time I came onto the clearing they'd already smeared Nick's face with the white paint and painted the red spot on his forehead. Tom and Liz arrived about one a.m.

We grabbed our stuff and ran to Mrs Swift's mansion. The first drop of rain fell on my nose as soon as we went out of the Glen.

'Great,' Tom muttered.

'Hurry up,' Elmo ducked into a deserted side street and ran faster.

By the time we reached the back block of Mrs Swift's house, the rain was falling down harder. We quickly pulled off our things from the bag.

'Hurry up! Hurry up!' Liz fussed about.

Tom handed the filthy mantle over to Nick. While Nick was pulling it on, Elmo drew a circle on the floor with a piece of chalk. Liz and I lit the candle, but a big drop instantly fell on the wick. I put the lighter to the candle again. After several tries we finally managed to light the wet wick. Richelle whined on and on about her hair, which were frizzing because of the rain.

'Move quickly!' Elmo hissed at Liz and me.

I handed the burning candle to Nick and we clustered around him. Nick, with the skull and burning candle in his hands started to mumble the spell, but the candle went out again. Nick swore.

'Let's stop that!' Richelle pleaded. 'You can invoke other thing.'

'We don't need other thing,' Liz whispered. 'We need John Kingston!'

'Shut up!' Nick growled.

Liz and I lit the candle again. Nick had to go back to the beginning of the ritual and to repeat it all over again. Everything was all right this time, but when I open my eyes there was no one, except us.

'No,' Nick sighed.

'Why?' Tom demanded.

Elmo shrugged.

'It's getting wet,' Richelle grumbled. 'Let's go home.'

'Maybe John is offended with us?' Liz whispered.

'To be honest, Nick wasn't respectful enough towards him,' Elmo began cautiously. 'Especially, if John wanted to help us.'

Nick, who during this conversation was nervously pacing back and forth near the wall, at these words turned round abruptly and struck his fist on the wall.

'John Kingston! Where are you! Answer us!' he roared.

A flash of lightning lit everything around with yellow light, the thunder crashed deafeningly in a second later. Liz and Richelle squealed. Then it was as if the sky was burst open and the rain poured down.

'Look!' Nick called.

I stepped closer to him. There was a black hole in the wall in front of Nick.

'John seems to invite us,' Liz whispered.

'Parnass didn't write anything about such invitations,' Elmo drawled doubtfully.

'Maybe he wrote in other book,' Tom started to argue.

'This hole looks like a door to the underworld,' Richelle cautiously looked at the hole, standing behind Nick. 'You're not going there, are you?'

Nick turned to us.

'Let's have a look?' he suggested. Even in the darkness I could see curiosity in his black eyes.

Lightning flashed again. The thunder cracked. Trees around us were rocking wildly. A strong wind wailed and moaned in the former rooms of the back wing. It seemed as if ghosts of all members of the Kingston family came in their native house.

'I…I won't…go there,' Richelle stammered.

'Wait here then,' I snapped.

Richelle grabbed Nick's hand, shaking her head vigorously. She didn't want to go into this black hole, but she didn't want to stay outside alone even more. Though I had to admit, I didn't like climbing inside either. This black hole looked like an entrance to the Hell.

'Nick, please!' Richelle pleaded, pulling at his sleeve. He squeezed her hand.

'Don't be afraid,' he whispered. 'We'll see what's there and go home.'

But he didn't move, though. None of us wanted to be first to go into this hole.

'Ooh, at least it's dry there,' Tom muttered at last and stepped inside. We heard a thud immediately, accompanied by Tom's scream.

'Tom!' Liz shouted. 'Tom, are you okay?'

'Give me the torch,' I demanded.

Nick obediently handed his torch to me. I turned the beam of light through the hole.

'Tom, where are you?' I called.

'I'm fine, I just fell,' we heard muffled Tom's voice from the blackness. 'There's a very steep staircase here, be careful.'

He was right. In the torchlight I could see the narrow, steep, stone stairs, disappearing into the blackness.

One by one we started climbing down the steep stairs, carefully feeling the slippery stairs with our feet. As soon as we reached Tom, who was standing on the bottom step, I heard a muffled sound from above. I whirled round abruptly and looked up. The entrance was closed. All what we could see in the faint torchlight, was the solid brick wall.

'Stay here,' I ordered to the others.

I scrambled up the steps and stared at the solid brick wall in front of me. It was difficult even to imagine, that several minutes ago we went through this wall. I felt around the wall, searching for the handle or level or hole in the wall that would make the door open again. But there was nothing. The site on the top of the staircase was very narrow. It was scarcely large enough for my feet. Nevertheless, I desperately shoved the wall with my shoulder. Nothing happened. I shoved it over and over again, but I might as well have been shoving a mountain. The wall was solid, none of bricks moved.

I went cautiously down to the others.

'Don't panic,' I said as calmly as I could. 'The door is closed. We're trapped.'


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9. Surprise**

Liz and Richelle squealed.

'This John… trapped us,' Richelle whispered through chattering teeth, clinging to Nick. He patted her arm, but he was stunned and frightened as well as the others.

We all were stricken with a soul-chilling horror. Even me. We didn't dare move, just stood there in the dark, listening to the grave silence. The place was completely silent, nothing was heard from outside, though a strong thunderstorm raged in a few meters from us. But we were out of it now. We were in a horrible, dark underground tunnel and its dead silence was a hundred times more terrible than any storm above, where we at least could do something to save our lives.

'We're trapped,' Richelle sobbed. 'Now I know! This John Kingston is a vampire.'

'Shut up, Richelle,' Liz hissed, clutching at me, weak with fright. 'You're driving Tom crazy.'

I glanced at Tom. He stood, leaning against the wall. His face was white and shiny with sweat. He licked his lips and forced himself to smile.

'I'm all right,' he murmured.

For the first time in my life I was in panic. I didn't know what to do. My memory kindly showed me horrible pictures of count Dracula and other evil spirits, who lured their victims into dungeons. I remembered about Henshaw and Frean, who obviously were sleeping in their warm beds.

Liz grabbed my arm. I put my arm around her and looked at the others. They crowded on the bottom of the staircase. We all were shaking all over, not only because of horror, but also because the rain had drenched us to the skin. We huddled together around the tiny torchlight, wet and freezing, feeling the chill of the room sinking into our bones.

'I told you that we'd better go home,' Richelle whimpered. 'But you never listen to me!'

'Well, blame your boyfriend,' Tom exploded. '"John Kingston! Answer us!"', he said rudely, imitating Nick's voice. 'So he answered. And what now? I'm coming down with pneumonia or something because of you.'

'Who cares,' Nick snapped.

'Idiot!' Tom snarled.

'Stop that!' Liz squealed. 'Can you two stop fighting at least before…' her voice broke off, but I knew what she wanted to say. I guess everyone knew it. Death seemed inevitable this time.

'Listen,' I did my best to sound as calm and confident as possible, 'we shouldn't panic. Elmo, is that piece of chalk with you?'

'Why?' he glanced at me.

'I think we'd better go further,' I jerked the beam of the torch at the dark passage. 'There might be catacombs. We'll mark our way in every turn, otherwise we can get lost and no one will know where we are.'

'Even if we don't get lost no one will know where we are,' Nick muttered gravely.

'We should try to find the way out,' Elmo shrugged. 'Sunny's right, we must mark our way.'

Nick sighed, grabbed his torch from my hand and stepped into the blackness of the tunnel. I followed close behind him, the others trailed behind us. Elmo walked last, lightning up our way with his torch.

Fortunately it wasn't catacombs, we didn't meet other tunnels. We slowly crept along the dark, narrow passage. This underground tunnel probably was put here when the house was built. I heard Richelle mumbling quietly something about ghosts, vampires and other stuff like that, driving me crazy. One by one horrible thoughts crossed my mind. Soon the tunnel became wider and in a few minutes we found ourselves in a large room. Nick stopped abruptly and started to move his torch from side to side.

'Wow,' he whistled.

'What's there?' Tom demanded from behind me.

'See for yourself,' Nick stepped aside.

The others clustered around us. The room was very big. Nick and Elmo's torches lit up boxes, several tables and huge metallic barrels.

'Look!' I pointed at a bulb, hanging from the ceiling on a wire.

'Where are we?' Richelle asked, peering around with fear.

'I don't know,' Elmo whispered back. 'But John Kingston is out of question.'

'Why do you think so?' Liz stared at him.

'Firstly, plastic boxes didn't exist in those days,' Elmo explained, jerking his torch at the pile of plastic boxes.

'Hey, these boxes are full of empty bottles,' Tom whispered.

'You're right,' Liz nodded excitedly.

'Listen,' I interrupted them, 'if there's a bulb, there must be a switch as well.'

Nick started moving the beam of light along the walls. 'Aha!' he exclaimed and rushed somewhere into the darkness.

In a moment a bright light illuminated the room. I screwed up my eyes. After the darkness of the tunnel this light seemed brighter than the sun. When I opened my eyes again, I was completely stunned.

We stood in a really big room. A lot of equal plastic boxes lined one of the walls. Some boxes were filled with empty bottles, others – with full bottles. I came up to one of the boxes and pulled out a bottle.

'A.E. Dor Embleme Anniversary Cognac,' I read the label.

Tom, meanwhile, pulled out other bottle from the next box. 'Oh, Appleton White Jamaica Rum,' he exclaimed cheerfully. 'You drink it, you're white as death.'

'You're absolutely right,' Nick drawled, standing near the table and looking through the piles of labels of all kinds and shapes. 'There is a wide range of alcohol drinks here.'

'Look, this box is full of bottles of tequila,' Liz pulled a beautiful bottle from one of the boxes. 'This one is "Blanco Tequila".'

'If these drinks are made out of this,' Elmo tapped his finger on one of the barrels, 'no matter what you drink, Blanco Tequila or White Jamaica Rum, all the same you'll die soon. Look at the label here.'

He was right. Every barrel was marked as "Industrial alcohol".

'For goodness sake! What a place!' Liz clapped her hand to her mouth.

'Someone produces fake alcohol drinks here,' Elmo nodded.

Suddenly there was a muffled murmur, which made us all jump. I turned round abruptly and saw Tom standing beside a big machine, which was shaking all over.

'What's up?' Nick rushed over to him.

'I don't know,' Tom mumbled. 'I just pressed a small button and this thing started to shake and rumble.'

'What button?' Nick snarled.

Tom jabbed his finger into a cluster of buttons on the machine. Nick quickly pressed the button and switched off the machine.

'Tom, are you mad?' Elmo hissed at him. 'Don't you understand that owners of this place could hear us? I don't think they'll be glad to see us here.'

'Look over there,' I interrupted and pointed at the wall, where was entrance into another tunnel.

'Let's see where this tunnel leads,' Nick suggested instantly.

'We'd better go out of this place,' I objected. 'If someone finds us here…'

'We won't leave this place alive,' Elmo finished my thought.

'We can't go back,' Nick insisted. 'There's no way out, we don't know how to open that door. But this tunnel may lead us to Mrs Swift's house or somewhere else.'

Elmo nodded, switched off the light and we carefully stepped into the dark tunnel.

'Do you think it's Mrs Swift who runs it?' Liz asked as we walked quickly down the tunnel.

'Probably,' Elmo nodded. 'Well, I'm sure that she at least knows about it.'

Liz looked depressed. She tried so hard to help Mrs Swift, but it turned out that Mrs Swift wasn't in trouble at all. Quite the opposite.

The second tunnel was much shorter. Soon we bumped into a steep staircase. I climbed up and saw a lid in the ceiling. There was a handle on the lid. I grabbed it and pulled. With a soft click the lid easily moved aside, opening a way into another room.

'Wow!' Tom exclaimed admiringly from below.

'Come up here,' I called them and climbed up into the hatch. One by one they followed me.

'Where are we now?' Richelle asked, looking around.

'In the chapel,' Nick answered. 'I saw this place through the window.'

In tiny torchlight we could see faded faces of saints looking at us.

'How beautiful,' Liz admired.

'Yeah,' Tom nodded, 'the painter was really talented.'

'So, someone uses this door to come in and go out,' Elmo pointed at the door thoughtfully. 'It means it wasn't the ghost at all, doesn't it?'

'I told you,' I snorted smugly.

'But we saw the black man,' Richelle objected. 'And someone opened that door for us.'

'Well, I could open that door accidentally,' Nick shrugged. 'I must have hit the right brick and it opened.'

'Then this people also could know about that door,' Richelle's voice broke off. There were male voices behind the door.

'Dive for cover,' Nick hissed.

'Down?' in panic Tom rushed over to the opened hatch.

'No,' they'll find us there,' Nick whispered urgently. 'Here,' he pointed at the deep niche in the wall.'

As soon as we ducked into this niche, the door swung open. I carefully peered out. A man came into the chapel and flicked his big powerful torch on. He came up to the opened hatch and turned round abruptly.

'Henry, you're idiot!' he shouted angrily.

Another man appeared in the doorway.

'What are you shouting for, Jack?'

'How many times do I have to tell you to close the hatch?' Jack asked rudely.

'I closed it,' Henry glanced at the hatch, puzzled.

'Oh, sure,' Jack snapped. 'Probably someone opened it.'

'I'm telling you, this place is haunted,' Henry kept apologizing.

'Your head is haunted,' Jack swore. 'Okay, go to the others. Tell them to prepare the car for loading.'

Henry sighed and went out. Jack, swearing under his breath, climbed down into the hatch.

'It's our chance,' Nick whispered. 'Go out one by one, very quietly. Tom, you're first.'

Tom ran up to the door and cautiously peered out. He turned round to us and gave a sign that the way was clear and slipped out of the chapel.

'Girls, your turn,' Nick slightly pushed Liz and Richelle towards the door. They quickly left the chapel.

'You go, Nick,' I pushed him. He climbed out of the niche and tangling in the mantle, quickly reached the door.

'Elmo, go,' I mouthed.

Elmo was in the doorway, when Jack emerged from the hatch and noticed him. He rushed forward and grabbed Elmo's hand.

'What are you doing here?' he snarled.

I stepped back in the darkness of the niche and waited what would happen next.

'I'm sorry,' Elmo whined. 'I just wanted to see! Please, let me go!'

'Are you alone?' Jack growled.

'Yes,' Elmo nodded. 'I just wanted to steal one bottle, that's all! I don't care what you're doing here! I won't tell anyone, I promise!'

'Our boss'll decide how to deal with you,' Jack dragged Elmo towards the hatch.

'No, please,' Elmo begged, but Jack thrust him into the hatch and clambered down after him.

I realized that I have only a couple of minutes to run away. Their boss'd order to search the chapel and I'd be easily found. I crept up to the door and peered out, my heart thumped wildly. Fortunately Henry and his mates were doing something in their truck. I slipped into the bushes, water dripped on my head from wet leaves. I looked around, but didn't see anyone.

Probably they ran to the police, I thought. I quietly crept away from the chapel, hiding behind bushes. Finally I crawled onto the road and saw my friends running down the street. I broke into a run and soon caught up with them.

'Sunny!' Liz exclaimed happily and gave me a hard hug.

'Where's Elmo?' Tom urged.

'They caught him,' I replied. 'Come on, they're going to deal with him.'

'Liz said that Greta Vortek lives not far from here, so we decided to go straight to her place and ask her to help,' Nick puffed as we ran.

Soon we stopped in front of a big, tended house. We let ourselves in the gate, and walked quickly along the path up to the front door. Liz pressed the doorbell, but there was no answer and no sign of life. Liz rang again.

'Where's she?' I whispered.

'She could sleep in one of the back rooms and not hear the bell,' Nick suggested. We turned the corner of the house and came up to a bedroom window, which was closed because of the thunderstorm.

Nick tapped at the window sharply.

'Miss Vortek!' he shouted. 'Please, open the door! It's an emergency!' he climbed on the edge of foundation and looked through the window. At that moment Greta finally opened the window.

'Who is…aaah!' she screamed and rushed back. A moment later she appeared in the window again, holding a gun in her hand.

'Go away, John!' she screamed.

Nick immediately jumped down to the ground and ran aside.

I snorted. Suddenly I realized what frightened Greta. Nick was still in his make-up. If someone wakes you up in the dead of night and you see in your window a death-white face with bright eyes and a hole in the centre of the forehead, you'll also be scared half to death, I guess.

'Miss Vortek! It's not John,' I shouted, trying hard not to laugh. 'It's us!'

'Who?' Greta asked, carefully looking through the window.

Liz stepped forward and started speaking something.

'Werewolf!' Greta screamed. 'Go away!' she waved with her gun.

'Miss Vortek!' werewolf yelled in Liz's voice. 'Please, listened to us! Elmo's in danger!'

'I don't know any Elmo,' Greta answered.

'You know! It's us, Teen Power Inc! Don't you recognize us?'

'You?' Greta finally opened the window and stared at us. 'Who are you?' she turned to Nick.

'Nick Kontellis,' he mumbled.

'Why did you smear your face?' Greta scowled. 'Do you want the police to arrest you on charges of disturbance of the public peace?'

'Miss Vortek! We don't have time to explain!' I shouted. 'Elmo's in danger! We found a secret underground room in Mrs Swift's house, where fake alcohol is produced.'

'What?' Greta widened her eyes.

'Counterfeit alcohol,' Tom put in. 'Cognac, tequila, rum and so on.'

'Come in,' Greta disappeared into the darkness of the room and soon the front door swung open.

We came into the house and started telling how we opened the door into the underground passage and found boxes with bottles.

'You're amazing, kids!' Greta exclaimed. 'We've been looking for these people for months. They poisoned a lot of people in other suburbs. We did our best to catch them, but couldn't even find evidences. And all this time they were near, right under our noses, hid in the ground like moles.'

Continuing grumbling under her breath, Greta ran up to the phone and dialed a number.

'Don't worry about your friend,' she turned to us, putting down the receiver. 'My colleagues will pick me up soon and we'll go there.'

'We'll also go,' Tom, Nick, Liz and I announced.

'No,' Greta objected strictly. 'You all go home. And don't argue.'

So, we were put in two police cars and handed over to our parents, as Greta ordered.

That night big scandals shook our families. Even my mum, who trusts me to make up my mind about things, was furious that I went out at nights without her permission. As for Nick, Richelle and Liz, they were forbidden to leave their houses, except for school.

###

The next day we all went to Elmo's place after school. We still didn't know what happened to Elmo and worried about him. When we came there, Zim said that Elmo was sleeping and in spite of our requests, Zim refused to wake him. It wasn't necessary, though. Elmo was okay, that was what we wanted to know.

After that we ran to the police. We were dying to know what happened after we'd been sent home. Greta was in her office, drinking coffee and writing something. She told us that we'd found one of the fake alcohol workshops. Its owner had several such workshops all over the country.

'What did they do to Elmo?' Liz asked.

'Nothing,' Greta replied. 'When we arrived, they were still interrogating him. But after that they'd get rid of him, for certain. Elmo was doing okay, he's very strong type,' she added respectfully. 'He didn't say anything about you, that's why they absolutely didn't expect to see us and we found everything in working condition.'

'Do you know who came out of the wall at nights?' Tom asked.

Greta choked with her coffee and burst into laughter.

'It was the workers in their black smock-frocks,' she said, smiling. 'It was quite hot down there. Besides, the owner didn't allow them to smoke inside. So they used the underground passage to go out to smoke and breathe some fresh air until Nick scared one of them half to death with his white face with hole in the forehead.'

'Did Mrs Swift help them?' Liz asked.

'No,' Greta shook her head. 'Quite the opposite. The owner of this workshop tried to scare her off and make her sell the house. When he was a child, he lived here and one day found the secret door in the back wing of the Swift's mansion. When time had come, he remembered about this underground room and making sure that no one knows about it, used this room as a secret workshop. If it hadn't been for you, I don't know how long we'd have searched for them. Okay, kids,' she stood up. 'I have to go.'

We said goodbye and went onto the street. Nick, Richelle and Liz trudged home. Tom and I glanced at each other and he winked at me.

'We still have something important to do, Sunny,' he said.

'What?' I stared at him.

'We have to return the skull and Apollon Parnass's book to Mrs Ramsey,' he grinned.


End file.
